Proverbs 17:12

Pro 17:12 Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly.

Ver. 12. Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man.] A bear is a fierce and fell creature, the she ear especially, as Aristotle notes, but most of all when robbed of her whelps, which she licketh into form, and loveth without measure. To meet her in this rage is to meet death in the face; and yet that danger may be sooner shifted and shunned than a furious fool set upon mischief. Such were the primitive persecutors, not sparing those Christians whom bears and lions would not meddle with. Such a one was our bloody Bonner, who in five years’ time took and roasted three hundred martyrs, most of them within his own walk and diocese. {a} Such another was that merciless Minerius, one of the Pope’s captains, who destroyed twenty-two towns of the innocent Merindelians in France, together with the inhabitants; and being entreated for some few of them that escaped in their shirts to cover their nakedness, he sternly answered that he knew what he had to do, and that not one of them should escape his hands, but he would send them to hell to dwell among devils. {b}

{a} Acts and Mon.

{b} Ibid.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Pro_17:12

Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly.

The cruelty of fools

The rage of wild beasts is short-lived, and their power is circumscribed within narrow limits. Man has more cause to dread his brother than all the beasts of the forest. Ambition, jealousy, and superstition are sad sources of cruelty. We all abhor the deeds of cruelty which the fool in his folly so frequently commits; but alas! we have not all an adequate estimate of the guilt attaching to the man at the moment, and in the act of entering into his folly. (W. Arnot, D. D.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Pro 17:12. Let a bear robbed of her whelps — When she is most cruel and fierce; meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly — That is, in the heat of his lust or passion, because the danger is greater, all things considered, and more unavoidable. A man may more easily stop, escape from, or guard against, an enraged bear than an outrageous man. It is observed by Bochart, (de Animal Sacr., lib. 3. cap. 9,) that the female bear is more fierce than the male; that she is more fierce than ordinary when she has whelps; and that when she is robbed of them she is fiercest of all.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

17:12 This saying cautions those who try to teach fools. A fool caught in foolishness will react with anger and violence.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Whereby he meaneth the wicked in his rage, who hath no fear of God.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Note, 1. A passionate man is a brutish man. However at other times he may have some wisdom, take him in his passion ungoverned, and he is a fool in his folly; those are fools in whose bosom anger rests and in whose countenance anger rages. He has put off man, and is become like a bear, a raging bear, a bear robbed of her whelps; he is as fond of the gratifications of his lusts and passions as a bear of her whelps (which, though ugly, are her own), as eager in the pursuit of them as she is in quest of her whelps when they are missing, and as full of indignation if crossed in the pursuit. 2. He is a dangerous man, falls foul of every one that stands in his way, though innocent, though his friend, as a bear robbed of her whelps sets upon the first man she meets as the robber. Ira furor brevis est - Anger is temporary madness. One may more easily stop, escape, or guard against an enraged bear, than an outrageous angry man. Let us therefore watch over our own passions (lest they get head and do mischief) and so consult our own honour; and let us avoid the company of furious men, and get out of their way when they are in their fury, and so consult our own safety. Currenti cede furori - Give place unto wrath.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

They are less rational in anger than wild beasts.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 12. Let a bear robbed of her whelps] At which times such animals are peculiarly fierce. 2Sa 17:8.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(12) A bear robbed of her whelps.—Proverbially dangerous then (2Sa_17:8; Hos_13:8). (See also 1Ki_2:24.)

A fool (khesîl).—Comp. Pro_1:32.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

12. a bear &c.] “The Syrian bear is fiercer than the brown bears to which we are accustomed. It attacks flocks (1Sa_17:34), and even oxen (Plin. viii. 64). The fierceness of the she-bear, bereaved of her whelps, became a proverb (2Sa_17:8).” Pusey on Hos_13:8.

rather than] Lit. and not.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man,.... A bear is a very fierce and furious creature, especially a she bear; and she is still more so when robbed of her whelps, which she has just whelped, and been at great pains to lick into shape and form, by which her fondness to them is increased; and therefore, being stripped of them, is full of rage; and ranging about in quest of them, falls furiously upon the first she meets with. Jerom (n) observes, that those who have written of the nature of beasts say, that, among all wild beasts, there is none more fierce than a she bear, when she has lost her whelps, or wants food. And yet, as terrible and as dangerous as it is, it is safer and more eligible of the two, to meet an enraged bear in those circumstances,

rather than a fool in his folly; in the height of his folly, in a paroxysm or fit of that; in the heat of his lusts, and the pursuit of them, in which there is no stopping him, or turning him from them; especially in the heat of passion and anger, which exceeds that of a bear, and is not so easily avoided. Jarchi applies it to such fools as seduce persons to idolatry, whom to meet is very dangerous: such are the followers of the man of sin, who have no mercy on the souls of men they deceive, and whose damnation they are the cause of; and who are implacably cruel to those who will not join with them in their idolatrous worship; the beast of Rome, his feet are as the feet of a bear, Rev 13:2; and one had better meet a bear than him and his followers.

(n) Comment, in Hos. xiii. 8. So Aristot. Hist. Animal. l. 6. c. 18.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

The large brown bear of Syria, in her rage at the loss of her whelps, was to the Israelites the strongest type of brute ferocity. Compare 2Sa 17:8; 2Ki 2:24.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Fool. Hebrew, "fool in his folly." The danger is not greater in meeting (Calmet) a female bear, though it be the most terrible. (Aristotle, Anim. ix. 1.)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Robbed of her whelps, when she is most cruel and fierce.

In his folly; in the heat of his lust or passion, because the danger is greater, all things considered, and more unavoidable.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

12. Let a bear robbed of her whelps — At which time she is particularly dangerous.

Rather than (Hebrew, but not) a fool in his folly — That is, a man had better encounter a ferocious she bear than a wicked fool. So the versions and critics generally. On the bereaved bear, compare 2Sa_17:8; 2Ki_2:24; Hos_13:8.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man. The Syrian bear was once common throughout Palestine; it is now found in but few localities, such as the hills of Hermon and Lebanon, and in the hills east of the Jordan, the destruction of wood and forest having deprived these animals of the shelter necessary to their existence. The ferocity of the bear when deprived of its young had become proverbial. (see 2Sa_17:8 Hos_13:8; Hart, "Animals of the Bible," 28, etc.) Rather than a fool in his folly; i.e. in the paroxysm of his passion. Compare Saul"s ungoverned language to Jonathan, (1Sa_20:30) and Herod"s murder of the children. (Mat_2:16) So we read of the people being filled with anoia against Jesus. (Luk_6:11) Oort supposes that this proverb arose from the riddle, "What is worse to meet than a bear?" Septuagint, "Care will fall upon a man of understanding; but fools imagine evils." The Greek translators take "bear" as us d metaphorically for terror and anxiety, but go far astray from the Hebrew text.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Folly - In the heat of his lust or passion.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

12 Meet a bear robbed of one of her whelps,

Only not a fool in his folly.

The name of the bear, as that of the cow, Job 21:10; Psa 144:14, preserves its masculine form, even when used in reference to sexual relationship (Ewald, 174b); the ursa catulis orbata is proverbially a raging beast. How the abstract expression of the action פּגושׁ [to meet], here as e.g., Psa 17:5, with the subj. following, must sound as finite (occurrat, may always meet), follows from ואל = ואל־יפגּשׁ (non autem occurrat). פּגושׁ has on the last syllable Mehuppach, and Zinnorith on the preceding open syllable (according to the rule, Accentssystem, vi. 5d).

(Note: In the Torath Emeth, p. 18, the word is irregularly represented as Milel - a closed syllable with Cholem can suffer no retrogression of the tone.)

שׁכּוּל, in the state of his folly, i.e., when he is in a paroxysm of his anger, corresponds with the conditional noun-adjective שׁכּוּל, for folly morbidly heightened is madness (cf. Hos 11:7; Psychol. p. 291f.).

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

v. 12. Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man rather than a fool in his folly, for a malignant fool is a greater menace to society and mankind in general than an angry bear.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

May a bereaving bear encounter a person It is better for a person that a bereaving bear encounter him rather than one of the foolish heathens, who entice him to idolatry.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.