Job 20:8

20:8 Like a dream he flies away, never again to be found, ¹ 

and like a vision of the night he is put to flight.

Psalms 73:20

73:20 They are like a dream after one wakes up. ² 

O Lord, when you awake ³  you will despise them. ⁴ 

[20:8]  ¹ tn Heb “and they do not find him.” The verb has no expressed subject, and so here is equivalent to a passive. The clause itself is taken adverbially in the sentence.

[73:20]  ² tn Heb “like a dream from awakening.” They lack any real substance; their prosperity will last for only a brief time.

[73:20]  ³ sn When you awake. The psalmist compares God’s inactivity to sleep and the time of God’s judgment to his awakening from sleep.

[73:20]  ⁴ tn Heb “you will despise their form.” The Hebrew term צֶלֶם (tselem, “form; image”) also suggests their short-lived nature. Rather than having real substance, they are like the mere images that populate one’s dreams. Note the similar use of the term in Ps 39:6.