How Much Money to Buy Wisdom? Proverbs 17:16

Why is there a price in the hand of a fool to buy wisdom, When he has no sense? Proverbs 17:16

Often fools pay a great deal of money to attain wisdom.  They go to prestigious schools and seek to earn degrees that supposedly garner them respect in the eyes of others in the world.  They will pay ridiculous amounts of money to travel near and far to talk to those who will help them know the meaning of life and the wisdom of the sages down through the years.  But this proverb reveals the real problem in its second part. 

Though the fool were to spend a billion forturnes to attain and buy wisdom, it is not available to him.  He will not grasp wisdom because he has no sense.  The word used for sense here is the Hebrew word, "leb" which means heart.  This is not speaking of his physical heart - even though it is the word used of the physical heart at times. The Hebrews believed that the heart referred to the inner man, the functioning of the mind and will - it is in effect the spirit or very center of the man.  When a man did not have heart, as is referred to here, he was seen as being a man who was dead on the inside.  He had no spiritual life - and no real heart for God or the things of God. 

Here is why the man first is a fool - and second, couldn't get wisdom if he had all the money in the world.  He is dead spiritually - and he is unresponsive to God because of it.  Since the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God - this man has a broken part that unless it is repaired (or in the spiritual sense - reborn) - he will never know wisdom.  Only the man who is alive spiritually will truly know wisdom.  There are many who can gather wise facts and wise sayings until they sound and even seem wise - yet, there is one glaring problem.  They do not know God, and if you do not know God and honor Him, you remain a fool no matter how much information you can spout off or how many wise sayings you can repeat. 

No heart?  No acknowledgement of God?  No hunger for Him and for His Word?  Then you will have no wisdom.  And this is true no matter how much money you can lay out wanting it.