As a dream when one awakes; so, O Lord, when you awake, you shall despise their image.
Read Chapter 73
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
19. "How have they become a desolation suddenly?" (ver. 19). He is wondering at them, understanding unto the last things. "They have vanished." Truly like smoke, which while it mounteth upward, doth vanish, so they have vanished. How doth he say, "They have vanished"? In the manner of one who understandeth the last things: "they have perished because of their iniquity." "Like as the dream of one rising up" (ver. 20). How have they vanished? As vanisheth the dream of one rising up. Fancy a man in sleep to have seen himself find treasures; he is a rich man, but only until he awaketh. "Like as the dream of one rising up:" so they have vanished, like the dream of one awaking. It is sought then and it is not: there is nothing in the hands, nothing in the bed. A poor man he went to sleep, a rich man in sleep he became: had he not awoke, he were a rich man: he woke up, he found the care which he had lost while sleeping. And these men shall find the misery which they had prepared for themselve...
City. In heaven. (Calmet)
Hebrew also, "when thou shalt awake "(Chaldean; Houbigant; Berthier) and come to judge, after waiting a long time. (Calmet)
Image. The splendour of world lings is a mere phantom. Death will show its vanity. (Haydock)
Their felicity is only imaginary. (Worthington) (Job xx. 8., Isaias xxix., and Psalm lxxv. 6.) (Calmet)
Though the wicked may live to a great age, (ver. 4.; Haydock) yet all time is short. (Menochius)
