(20) As a dream.--Better,

"As a man on waking (despises) his dream,

So, O Lord, on rousing thyself, thou wilt

Despise their shadow."

an image of the result of the Divine judgment on the vain and boastful tyrants, which may be illustrated by Henry V.'s rising with his royalty to self-respect:--

"I have long dreamt of such a kind of man,

So surfeit-swell'd, so old, and so profane;

But, being awake, I do despise my dream."

Verse 20. - As a dream when one awaketh; so, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image. As men despise their dreams when they awake from them, so, when God "stirs up himself and awakes to judgment" (Psalm 35:23), he will despise such mere semblances of humanity (Psalm 39:6) as the wicked are.

73:15-20 The psalmist having shown the progress of his temptation, shows how faith and grace prevailed. He kept up respect for God's people, and with that he restrained himself from speaking what he had thought amiss. It is a sign that we repent of the evil thoughts of the heart, if we suppress them. Nothing gives more offence to God's children, than to say it is vain to serve God; for there is nothing more contrary to their universal experience. He prayed to God to make this matter plain to him; and he understood the wretched end of wicked people; even in the height of their prosperity they were but ripening for ruin. The sanctuary must be the resort of a tempted soul. The righteous man's afflictions end in peace, therefore he is happy; the wicked man's enjoyments end in destruction, therefore he is miserable. The prosperity of the wicked is short and uncertain, slippery places. See what their prosperity is; it is but a vain show, it is only a corrupt imagination, not substance, but a mere shadow; it is as a dream, which may please us a little while we are slumbering, yet even then it disturbs our repose.As a dream when one awaketh,.... So will be all the temporal felicity of wicked men, all an illusion, all a dream; when they lift up their eyes in hell, and awake in the resurrection, they will find themselves destitute of all their riches and honours, and it will be as if they had only dreamed of them, and never enjoyed them; see Job 20:6 so, "O Lord, when thou awakest"; to judgment, to take vengeance on wicked men, and vindicate his own people; and who seems sometimes to be as it were asleep, and to take no notice of things, when the judgment of the ungodly, and their damnation, seem to slumber, though it does not; see Psalm 7:6 or when he awakes the dead at the time of the resurrection. Death is often compared to sleep in Scripture, and the resurrection to an awaking out of it, which is the Lord's work, Isaiah 26:19, and so the Targum,

"O Lord, when thou shalt raise them from their graves:''

thou shalt despise their image; the image of the earthly man, of sin and of Satan, which is upon both their souls and bodies; which will both be destroyed in hell: or their riches and honour, the vain show in which they have walked, their outward pomp and splendour; which was only a show, an outward appearance, and no solidity and substance; and which will not be esteemed in the great day of account, but despised; see Job 36:18, the wicked will awake, and arise to everlasting shame and contempt, Daniel 12:2.