Proverbs 17:12 (BSB)

It is better to meet a bear robbed of her cubs than a fool in his folly.

From Proverbs 17. Also in the ESV.

Commentary on Proverbs 17:12

• Matthew Henry (Presbyterian), Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary on Proverbs 17:12: 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.
• John Gill (Reformed Baptist), Exposition of the Old and New Testaments on Proverbs 17:12: 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...
• Jamieson-Fausset-Brown (Reformed), Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible on Proverbs 17:12: They are less rational in anger than wild beasts.
• Geneva Bible Notes (Reformed), Geneva Bible Study Notes on Proverbs 17:12: Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly. (f) By which he means the wicked in his rage, who has no fear of God.