He shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be found,.... Either as a dream which is forgotten, as Nebuchadnezzar's was, and cannot be recovered; or as the matter and substance of a dream, which, though remembered, is a mere illusion; as when a hungry or thirsty man dreams he eats or drinks, but, awaking, finds himself empty, and not at all refreshed; what he fancied is fled and gone m, and indeed never had any existence but in his imagination, Isaiah 29:8;
yea, he shall be chased away as a vision of the night; either the same as a nocturnal dream, or what a man fancies he sees in his dream; or like a mere spectre or apparition, which is a mere phantom, and, when followed and pursued, vanishes and disappears; so such a man before described is chased out of the world, and is seen in it no more, see
Job 18:18; the first clause, according to Sephorno, refers to the generation of the flood, and the second to the slaying of the firstborn of Egypt in the night.
m σκιας οναρ ανθρωποι, Pindar. Pythia, Ode 8.