4. “ I will come upon thee as a thief"--3:3. The Lord would come as a thief, not as a robber. The robber comes in violence, but the thief comes in the night of sleep. This warning compares to that of Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:1-28 :1-2, and applies to the manner, not to the time, of his coming. While they reposed in their spiritual slumber, the events depicted would unexpectedly overwhelm them. The warning was a picture of their own spiritual state of unpreparedness. It was not a reference to the time of his advent, but it did refer to his coming in the events of judgment, and his coming as a thief meant that they were not alert and ready.