He shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be found: yea, he shall be chased away as a vision of the night.
All Commentaries on Job 20:8 Go To Job 20
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
The pride of the hypocrite is said to “mount up as high as the heavens,” when his highmindedness has the appearance of leading a heavenly life. And his “head, as it were, reaches to the clouds,” when the leading part, that is, his intellect, is thought to equal the merits of the saints that have gone before. Yet “he perishes at last like his own dung,” because at his death, when he is led to torments, being full of the dung of evil habits, he is trampled underfoot by evil spirits.… It generally happens that the life of the hypocrite is discovered by all people at the end to be damnable, for it to be made apparent by plainer marks of what sort it was. Those who formerly saw him happy shall then say of him when dead, “Where is he?” For neither is he seen here, where he was elated, nor in the rest of eternity, which he was supposed to receive. Concerning the brevity of the hypocrite’s life, it is yet further added fittingly, “He will fly away like a dream and not be found; he will be chased away like a vision of the night.” What else is the life of the hypocrite but the vision of a phantom that exhibits the facade that it does not possess in truth?
