Skip to main content
Psalmlog Logo
Read

Psalm 73:20

As a dream when one wakes up, so, Lord, when you awake, you will despise their fantasies.

18Surely you set them in slippery places. You throw them down to destruction.
19How they are suddenly destroyed! They are completely swept away with terrors.
20As a dream when one wakes up, so, Lord, when you awake, you will despise their fantasies.
21For my soul was grieved. I was embittered in my heart.
22I was so senseless and ignorant. I was a brute beast before you.
World English BibleRead in NIV in Psalmlog →
← Psalm 73:19Psalm 73:21 →
Notice

A dream that vanishes on waking captures the fragility of the wicked’s apparent security before the Lord’s contempt and judgment.

Questions to write on. Each one opens a new entry with this verse already attached.

What apparent security looks less solid through this comparison with a vanishing dream?

Write on this

How does the Lord’s contempt for their fantasies challenge what you find enviable?

Write on this
Connect

Where else Scripture says this

11 passages readers most often link with this verse, and the thread each one shares with it.

This verse's connections, by chapterThe Bible's strongest chapter linksHover or tap a book to trace it
Job 20:8He will fly away as a dream, and will not be found. Yes, he will be chased away like a vision of the night.Both passages compare a person’s disappearance to a dream that slips away.
Psalm 90:5You sweep them away as they sleep. In the morning they sprout like new grass.Both use sleep imagery to describe how fragile human life is before God’s action.
Psalm 78:65Then the Lord awakened as one out of sleep, like a mighty man who shouts by reason of wine.Both portray the Lord as awakening from sleep, using human imagery to describe his action.
Daniel 3:17If it happens, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace; and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king.The shared thread is God’s power over human strength; Daniel speaks of deliverance from a king, while the psalm describes judgment.
Luke 15:17But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough to spare, and I’m dying with hunger!Both describe a break with illusion, though Luke’s hungry man comes to himself while the psalm pictures the Lord awakening.
Psalm 53:5There they were in great fear, where no fear was, for God has scattered the bones of him who encamps against you. You have put them to shame, because God has …Both describe God’s rejection of people, with contempt in Psalm 73 and fear, scattered bones, and shame in Psalm 53.
Isaiah 29:7The multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, even all who fight against her and her stronghold, and who distress her, will be like a dream, a …Both compare threatening human strength to a dream, exposing how little permanence it has.
Isaiah 29:8It will be like when a hungry man dreams, and behold, he eats; but he awakes, and his hunger isn’t satisfied; or like when a thirsty man dreams, and behold, he …Both use waking from a dream to expose the emptiness of what seemed secure or satisfying.
Genesis 41:53The seven years of plenty, that were in the land of Egypt, came to an end.The connection is limited to impermanence: dreamlike security vanishes in the psalm, while Egypt’s seven years of plenty end in Genesis.
Psalm 7:6Arise, LORD, in your anger. Lift up yourself against the rage of my adversaries. Awake for me. You have commanded judgment.Both address God with the language of awakening and connect his action with judgment.
1 Corinthians 7:31and those who use the world, as not using it to the fullest. For the mode of this world passes away.Both describe what passes away, challenging confidence in the permanence of present circumstances.
Where this verse fits

Envy and comparison. injustice and anger.

What the Bible says about anger →
One step

Something small to carry out of this verse

Read verses 18–22 and name what God’s judgment exposes

scriptureoncelight
Encouragement

The Lord’s awakening is poetic language for his action in judgment. The security of the wicked has no lasting substance before him, however solid it looks now.

Now put it in your words.

Start an entry on Psalm 73:20. Write what it stirs. Psalmlog sets your words beside Scripture and gives you one next step. Your first entry is free, no account needed.

Keep goingPsalm 73 · the whole chapter with its connection mapPsalms · every chapterBuild a reading plan through Psalms

Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).