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

A stone is heavy, and the sand weighty; But a fool's vexation is heavier than they both.

A stone is heavy, and sand weighty: but the anger of a fool is heavier than them both.

A stone is heavy, and the sand is heavy, And the anger of a fool Is heavier than they both.

A stone has great weight, and sand is crushing; but the wrath of the foolish is of greater weight than these.

A stone is weighty, and sand is burdensome; but the wrath of the foolish is heavier than both.

Compare Ecclus. 22:15; a like comparison between the heaviest material burdens and the more intolerable load of unreasoning passion.

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 Zac 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 the weight of it, as Nabal did: "wrath killeth the foolish man", Job 5:2; and it is still more intolerable to others, as Nebuchadnezzar's wrath and his fiery furnace were.

Those who have no command of their passions, sink under the load.

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.

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, Proverbs 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 the fool himself (Hitzig, Zckler, Dchsel), but for others against whom his anger goes forth. A Jewish proverb (vid., Tendlau, No. 901) says, that one knows a man by his wine-glass (כוס), his purse (כיס), and his anger (כעס), viz., how he deports himself in the tumult; and another says that one reads what is in a man ביום כעסו, when he is in an ill-humour. Thus also כעס is to be here understood: the fool in a state of angry, wrathful excitement is so far not master of himself that the worst is to be feared; he sulks and shows hatred, and rages without being appeased; no one can calculate what he may attempt, his behaviour is unendurable. Sand, חול,
(Note: Sand is called by the name חוּל (חיל), to change, whirl, particularly to form sand-wreaths, whence (Arab.) al-Habil, the region of moving sand; vid., Wetzstein's Nord-arabien, p. 56.)
as it appears, as to the number of its grains innumerable, so as to its mass (in weight) immeasurable, Job 6:3; Sir. 22:13. נטל the Venet. translates, with strict regard to the etymology, by ἅρμα.

Heavier - More grievous, being without cause, without measure, and without end.