The key terms introduced by the two sayings of verse 8 are the basis for a discussion of foolish behavior in verse 9. In particular Qoheleth takes up the matter of anger and its relationship to a person’s ruach “spirit” or “temper.” The advice Qoheleth now offers is presented as two imperatives in verses 8 and 9, using the same form as in the brief negative commands of the Ten Commandments. The first warns “Do not be quick in your spirit to get angry.”

Be not quick to anger calls people not to rush into overreacting to situations where they may have been offended or lost face. It is the same call for calmness found in 5.2 (“Do not be rash…”), and it will appear again in 8.3. In each of these verses there is a connection with foolish behavior. The wise person should avoid hasty reactions. In some languages referring to anger as “quick” may not be idiomatic, so some other means must be found to express this sense: “Don’t give in to anger” or “Don’t get angry lightly.”

Anger translates the root in verse 3 that was rendered as “sorrow,” its other meaning. This has probably influenced New American Bible in its choice of the term “discontented,” but we should search for a term for “anger” or “bad temper.” Gordis suggests “uncontrolled bad temper.”

When the Hebrew text as shown above uses the term “in your spirit,” it is pointing to an inner state of mind. So a question we can ask is: Does Qoheleth think only of some internal response (this is what we find in the New American Bible version, “Do not in spirit become quickly discontented”), or is the anger more active and outwardly expressed? Our view here is that Qoheleth is probably thinking more in terms of an internal state, so something like Good News Translation “Keep your temper under control” or “Don’t lose your temper easily!” convey the notion well. In some languages anger may be expressed in the “spirit,” but it can be in other parts of the body, often the heart, the eyes, the nose, the face, or the stomach.

For anger lodges in the bosom of fools is the explanatory clause Qoheleth provides to add strength to his warning. Anger is associated with fools; in fact, says Qoheleth, anger actually lives in or lodges deep inside the fool’s body. The bosom is where he locates the deep-seated and passionate feelings. If the fool has anger deep within his being, this suggests that this anger is readily expressed. Qoheleth thus warns his readers not to allow anger to move in and dwell within them, otherwise they will become like the fool. In some languages it may not be natural to speak of anger “lodging” in a person. In such cases we use idiomatic expressions such as “their hearts are full of anger” or “they store up anger in themselves.”

One reason Qoheleth has used the unusual verb nuach “lodge” is that it sounds like the word ruach “spirit” in the first half of the verse. In almost all cases, however, it will be impossible to render this kind of wordplay in other languages.

The following are possibilities for translation:

• Don’t lose your temper [too quickly], because anger dwells only in a fool’s heart.

• Keep your temper under control; only fools harbor grudges.

• Be careful not to get angry, for the fool’s heart is full of anger.

Quoted with permission from Ogden, Graham S. and Zogbo, Lynell. A Handbook on the Book of Ecclesiates. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .