What Does Job 20:8 Mean?
He flies away as a dream, and is not found; he is chased away as a vision of the night.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
He shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be found: yea, he shall be chased away as a vision of the night.THE KEY
The man is not just gone; the Hebrew pictures him driven into restless flight, while even his night image disappears.
THE MEANING
The man before you is already passing like a dream: he flies away and cannot be found. The night vision is driven off too, so the image that filled the dark leaves no lasting trace.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what fills your sight now must remain within reach; even a vivid image can be driven out and lost.
THE ROOT
וְיֻדַּד
weyuddad
GROWS FROM
נדד
To flee or wander; in this form, to be driven away.
The verb translated “chased away” comes from a root of fleeing and wandering. The disappearance is restless displacement: the man is driven off with no place to settle.
ALSO GROWS
nādad: To flee or wander.
נָדַד
This is the root verb behind “chased away”; its motion makes the disappearance feel like flight, not simple stillness.
nedudim: Wanderings; restless tossings.
נְדוּדִים
This related word shows the root can carry ongoing, unsettled motion, sharpening the image of a figure driven from sight.
חֲלוֹם
ḥălôm
GROWS FROM
חלם
To dream; a dream.
The Hebrew noun for “dream” belongs to the same root as the verb “to dream.” The image is not merely compared to something fleeting: it is named as a dream, an experience that vanishes when it is no longer seen.
ALSO GROWS
ḥālam: To dream.
חָלַם
The verb and the verse’s noun share one root, joining the experience of dreaming to the image that disappears.
ḥălômôt: Dreams.
חֲלוֹמוֹת
The plural keeps the same word-family connection: each dream is an image that can pass from view.
חֶזְיוֹן
ḥezyôn
GROWS FROM
חזה
To see or behold.
The Hebrew word for “vision” comes from a root meaning “to see.” Beside the dream, it makes the verse’s two comparisons images of perception: vivid while seen, yet unable to hold what passes.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāzāh: To see or behold.
חָזָה
This verb is the root’s act of seeing, which gives “vision” its sense of something seen.
ḥōzeh: A seer; one who sees.
חֹזֶה
This related word names the one who sees, linking the night vision to the act of perception.
THE PATTERN
What appears vivid and substantial can pass beyond finding when the image dissolves.
As a dream at waking, O Lord, when you rouse, you spurn their shadow.And the crowd of all the nations that muster against Ariel, even all who muster against her and her fortress, and who press against her, will be like a dream, a sight of the night.You do not know what tomorrow holds. For what is your life? You are a mist, showing itself for a little while, and then made unseen.THE THREAD
As a dream at waking, O Lord, when you rouse, you spurn their shadow.Both verses use חֲלוֹם (ḥălôm), “dream,” from the root חלם (ḥ-l-m; ḥālam), “to dream.” Job shows the man disappearing like a dream; the psalm places the same image at waking, when what appeared before the eye is gone.
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