Proverbs 27:3

A stone is heavy, and the sand weighty; but a fool’s wrath is heavier than them both.

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Word by word — the Hebrew

Word	Hebrew	Strong’s	Meaning
stone	אֶ֭בֶן 'E.ven	H68	a stone · noun, common feminine singular absolute
heavy	כֹּֽבֶד koed-	H3514	weight · noun, common masculine singular construct
sand	הַח֑וֹל ha.Chol	H2344	sand (as round or whirling particles) · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
weighty	וְנֵ֣טֶל ve.Ne.tel	H5192	a burden · conjunction + noun, common masculine singular construct
fool’s	אֱ֝וִ֗יל 'e.Vil	H191	(figuratively) silly · adjective, masculine singular absolute
wrath	וְכַ֥עַס ve.Kha.'as	H3708	vexation · conjunction + noun, common masculine singular construct
heavier	כָּבֵ֥ד ka.Ved	H3515	heavy · adjective, masculine singular absolute
both	מִשְּׁנֵיהֶֽם mi.she.nei.Hem	H8147	two · preposition + cardinal number, both genders dual construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural

Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).

Cross-references

Daniel 3:19 Then was Nebuchadnezzar full of fury, and the form of his visage was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego: therefore he spake, a…
1 John 3:12 Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s…
Genesis 49:7 Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel: I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel.
1 Samuel 22:18-19 And the king said to Doeg, Turn thou, and fall upon the priests. And Doeg the Edomite turned, and he fell upon the priests, and slew on that…
Proverbs 17:12 Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly.
Genesis 34:25-26 And it came to pass on the third day, when they were sore, that two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brethren, took each man h…
Esther 3:5-6 And when Haman saw that Mordecai bowed not, nor did him reverence, then was Haman full of wrath.

Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Proverbs 27:3-4

These two verses show the intolerable mischief, 1. Of ungoverned passion. The wrath of a fool, who when he is provoked cares not what he says and does, is more grievous than a great stone or a load of sand. It lies heavily upon himself. Those who have no command of their passions do themselves even sink under the load of them. The wrath of a fool lies heavily upon those he is enraged at, to whom, in his fury, he will be in danger of doing some mischief. It is therefore our wisdom not to give provocation to a fool, but, if he be in a passion, to get out of his way. 2. Of rooted malice, which is as much worse than the former as coals of juniper are worse than a fire of thorns. Wrath (it is tru…

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Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Proverbs 27:3

heavy--The literal sense of "heavy," applied to material subjects, illustrates its figurative, "grievous," applied to moral. a fool's wrath--is unreasonable and excessive.

John Gill on Proverbs 27:3

A stone is heavy, and the sand weighty,.... As was the stone which was at the well's mouth, where Laban's flocks were watered, which could not be rolled away till all the shepherds were gathered together, Genesis 29:2; and like the burdensome stone Jerusalem is compared to Zechariah 12:3; and as that at the sepulchre of Christ, rolled away by the angel, Matthew 28:2. And sand is a very ponderous thing; difficult to be carried, as the Septuagint render it, as a bag of it is; and to which heavy afflictions are sometimes compared, Job 6:2; but a fool's wrath is heavier than them both; it cannot be removed, it rests in his bosom; it is sometimes intolerable to himself; he sinks and dies under t…

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Keil & Delitzsch on Proverbs 27:3

The second pair of proverbs designates two kinds of violent passion as unbearable: 3 The heaviness of a stone, the weight of sand - A fool's wrath is heavier than both. We do not translate: Gravis est petra et onerosa arena, so that the substantives stand for strengthening the idea, instead of the corresponding adjective (Fleischer, as the lxx, Jerome, Syr., Targum); the two pairs of words stand, as 4a, in genit. relation (cf. on the contrary, Pro 31:30), and it is as if the poet said: represent to thyself the heaviness of a stone and the weight of sand, and thou shalt find that the wrath of a fool compared thereto is still heavier, viz., for him who has to bear it; thus heavier, not for th…

The Church Fathers

The stone is heavy, etc. It is indeed quite grievous for anyone to be weighed down by even a single capital crime, as if by the weight of a stone, or to be burdened by countless lighter sins, like pebbles or sand; but the anger of a fool is heavier than both, because these sins, once revealed as certainly evil as they are, more sharply prick the soul to chastise. Truly, because it is not a physical but a spiritual vice, the less it is perceived, the more it weighs down. Hence, he does not simply say anger, but the anger of a fool, is heavier than stone and sand. For the wise endeavor to examine and discipline their mental impulses as diligently as their actions and words.
— Bede, Commentary on Proverbs

The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).

Dictionary and topics

Anger · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning

Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).

Proverbs 27:3

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Proverbs 27:3-4

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Proverbs 27:3

John Gill on Proverbs 27:3

Keil & Delitzsch on Proverbs 27:3

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

Proverbs 27:3

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Proverbs 27:3-4

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Proverbs 27:3

John Gill on Proverbs 27:3

Keil & Delitzsch on Proverbs 27:3

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

Tyndale Open Study Notes on Proverbs 27:3

Rashi on Proverbs 27:3