Revelation 2:9

‘I know your tribulation and your poverty (although you are rich) and the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews, and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.'

Smyrna is a suffering church. They are at present facing tribulation, and will yet face greater tribulation, as depicted later. They are poor in this world's goods, but rich in what really matters, the things of God (compare James 2:5).

Their present problems stem from actions initiated by Jews, certain of whom regularly persecuted the early church and stirred up the people and the authorities against them. (They would later be the main cause of the martyrdom of Polycarp in this very place (156 AD)). And these Jews claim to do it in the name of God, which can only be regarded as blasphemy, for they are attacking the people of God. Thus they show themselves really to be serving Satan in what they are doing, assisting him as he seeks to make war on God's people (Revelation 12:17). Their synagogue has become the tool of Satan.

‘Satan' means ‘the adversary' and they are here acting as adversaries against the people of God. Compare how Jesus told the Pharisees that they were of their father the Devil (John 8:44) when they professed to serve God but demonstrated by their actions whom they really served.

In the light of the fact that the other letters refer specifically to events in Old Testament history in ascending chronological order, and the fact that overcomers will avoid ‘the second death', which relates to the accounts of the first deaths in Genesis 4:8; Genesis 4:23, we may well apply this situation to Cain's building of ‘a city' (a tent encampment). First there was a city and then there was the great city, Babel, with its Ziggurat or Temple. Thus the synagogue of the Jews, seen as outside the sphere of the Christian church, parallels Cain's encampment, outside the sphere of ‘the presence of the Lord' (Genesis 4:16). Both ‘say they are' and are not. Those who were once ‘in' are now ‘out'.