Dictionaries :: Thief, Thieves

Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words

Thief, Thieves:

is used

(a) literally, Mat 6:19, 20; 24:43; Luk 12:33, 39; Jhn 10:1, 10; 12:6; 1Cr 6:10; 1Pe 4:15;

(b) metaphorically of "false teachers," Jhn 10:8;

(c) figuratively,

(1) of the personal coming of Christ, in a warning to a local church, with most of its members possessed of mere outward profession and defiled by the world, Rev 3:3; in retributive intervention to overthrow the foes of God, Rev 16:15;

(2) of the Day of the Lord, in Divine judgment upon the world, 2Pe 3:10; 1Th 5:2, 4; in 1Th 5:2, according to the order in the original "the word 'night' is not to be read with 'the day of the Lord,' but with 'thief,' i.e., there is no reference to the time of the coming, only to the manner of it. To avoid ambiguity the phrase may be paraphrased, 'so comes as a thief in the night comes.' The use of the present tense instead of the future emphasizes the certainty of the coming.... The unexpectedness of the coming of the thief, and the unpreparedness of those to whom he comes, are the essential elements in the figure; cp. the entirely different figure used in Mat 25:1-13."*
[* From Notes on Thessalonians, by Hogg and Vine, pp. 153, 154.]

Thief, Thieves:

is frequently rendered "thieves" in the AV, e.g., Mat 21:13.
See ROBBER.