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

It is better to meet a bear robbed of her whelps, than a fool trusting in his own folly.

The meeting of a bereaved bear by a man, And, not a fool in his folly.

It is better to come face to face with a bear whose young ones have been taken away than with a foolish man acting foolishly.

It is more expedient to meet a bear robbed of her young, than the foolish trusting in his own folly.

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 2-Samuel 17:8; 2-Kings 2:24.

Let a bear robbed of her whelps - At which times such animals are peculiarly fierce. See the note on 2-Samuel 17:8.

Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than (f) a fool in his folly.
(f) By which he means the wicked in his rage, who has no fear of God.

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, Revelation 13:2; and one had better meet a bear than him and his followers.
(n) Comment, in Hosea. xiii. 8. So Aristot. Hist. Animal. l. 6. c. 18.

Let us watch over our own passions, and avoid the company of furious men.

They are less rational in anger than wild beasts.

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; Psalm 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., Psalm 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. Hosea 11:7; Psychol. p. 291f.).

Folly - In the heat of his lust or passion.