'When the Hosts of Hell Assail'

A word entered my head that I’m certain I’ve never before used in writing or speech. This happened while contemplating some new outrage heard on the radio. I wasn’t sure of the word’s precise meaning, though I loosely associated it with the Old Testament and Negro spirituals. It has an old-fashioned resonance, almost melodramatic: tribulation. Shortly afterward came its linguistic partner: trials and tribulations.

The OED pretty much confirmed my hunch: “a condition of great affliction, oppression, or misery; ‘persecution; distress; vexation; disturbance of life’ (Johnson).” I enjoy it when the OED quotes Dr. Johnson in one of its definitions. The word entered English in the fourteenth century, from Latin by way of Old French. Chaucer used it, as did Thomas More and Milton. I checked the King James Bible and, sure enough, it shows up twenty-two times, first in Deuteronomy 4:30: “When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, even in the latter days, if thou turn to the LORD thy God, and shalt be obedient unto his voice. . .” The book where it appears most often, rather ominously, is Revelation.

I was right about the spirituals too. One titled “Stand By Me” has this verse: “In the midst of tribulation / Stand by me / In the midst of tribulation / Stand by me / When the hosts of hell assail / And my strength begins to fail / Thou who never lost a battle / Stand by me.” I find the most powerful and moving use of the word in Book III of Paradise Lost:

“Mean while

The world shall burn, and from her ashes spring

New Heaven and Earth, wherein the just shall dwell,

And, after all their tribulations long,

See golden days, fruitful of golden deeds,
With joy and peace triumphing, and fair truth.”