Bible Strands
Ecclesiastes 7:9
Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger settles in the lap of a fool.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The Preacher (Qohelet) addresses his reader in a series of practical wisdom sayings, bracketed by praise of a patient spirit (v.8) and a warning against nostalgic complaint (v.10).
The words — חֵיק (cheik) means "bosom" or "lap," a physical image: anger doesn't pass through but takes up residence in the body. The verb תִּבְהַל (tiv.hel) is "be hasty," the specific fault the verse names before anger even appears.
The thread — Proverbs 14:17 equates quick temper with foolish action; Proverbs 16:32 ranks slow anger above military conquest; James 1:19 commands the same slowness to anger as a mark of the believer.
Why it lands — The verse ties anger to a fixed identity ("fool") rather than a temporary mood, asking the reader to treat the impulse to react immediately as a diagnostic, not an emotion to be managed.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools.
Cross-references
- James 1:19 My beloved brothers, understand this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger,
- Proverbs 14:17 A quick-tempered man acts foolishly, and a devious man is hated.
- Proverbs 16:32 He who is slow to anger is better than a warrior, and he who controls his temper is greater than one who captures a city.
- Ephesians 4:26 “Be angry, yet do not sin.” Do not let the sun set upon your anger,
- Proverbs 26:23 Like glaze covering an earthen vessel are burning lips and a wicked heart.
- Genesis 34:7 When Jacob’s sons heard what had happened, they returned from the field. They were filled with grief and fury, because Shechem had committed an outrage in Israel by lying with Jacob’s daughter—a thing that should not be done.
- Genesis 34:30 Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have brought trouble upon me by making me a stench to the Canaanites and Perizzites, the people of this land. We are few in number; if they unite against me and attack me, I and my household will be destroyed.”
- 1 Samuel 25:21 Now David had just said, “In vain I have protected all that belonged to this man in the wilderness. Nothing that belongs to him has gone missing, yet he has paid me back evil for good.
- 2 Samuel 13:22 And Absalom never said a word to Amnon, either good or bad, because he hated Amnon for violating his sister Tamar.
- 2 Samuel 19:43 “We have ten shares in the king,” answered the men of Israel, “so we have more claim to David than you. Why then do you despise us? Were we not the first to speak of restoring our king?” But the men of Judah spoke more fiercely than the men of Israel.