As a dream when [one] awaketh; [so], O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image.
Ver. 20. As a dream when one awaketh] Such is the wicked man's pomp and bravery, know, what are dreams but pleasant follies and delusions, the empty bubbles of the mind, children and tales of fancy, idle and fruitless notions, mere baubles? See Isaiah 29:7,8. The fisherman in Theocritus dreamt that he was some demi-god; but when he awaked all his golden hopes vanished (Sic Mycillus apud Lucian). The Chaldee explaineth it, As the dream of a drunken man; who, sleeping on the steep of a rock, may think himself a king; and starting for joy, may soon break his neck at the bottom.
So, O Lord, when thou awakest thou shalt despise their image] That is, that whereof they dreamt, and whereon they do still dote, viz. their worldly pomp and pride, which is nothing else but magnum nihil, a glorious fancy, a nonentity. Some read it thus, When thou shalt raise up (the dead), thou shalt despise their image, that is, their souls; they shall rise to everlasting shame and contempt, Daniel 12:2 .