Wherefore is there a price in the hand of a fool to get wisdom, seeing he hath no heart to it?

Wherefore is there a price in the hand of a fool to buy wisdom, Seeing he hath no understanding?

What doth it avail a fool to have riches, seeing he cannot buy wisdom? He that maketh his house high, seeketh a downfall: and he that refuseth to learn, shall fall into evils.

To what purpose is there a price in the hand of a fool to get wisdom, seeing he hath no sense?

Why is this, a price in the hand of a fool to buy wisdom, And a heart there is none?

How will money in the hand of the foolish get him wisdom, seeing that he has no sense?

Why is there money in the hand of a fool to buy wisdom, seeing he has no understanding?

What does it profit the foolish to have riches, when he is not able to buy wisdom? Whoever makes his house high seeks ruin. And whoever shuns learning shall fall into evils.

More literally: Why is there a price in the hand of a fool? Is it to get wisdom when he has no heart for it? No money will avail without the understanding heart.

Why [is there] a (g) price in the hand of a fool to get wisdom, seeing [he hath] no heart [to it]?
(g) What good does it do the wicked to be rich, seeing he does not set his mind to wisdom?

Wherefore is there a price in the hand of a fool to get wisdom,.... Natural wisdom and knowledge. By this "price" may be meant money, riches, worldly substance, of which a foolish man is possessed; by means of which he might purchase useful books for the improvement of his mind, and procure himself instructors that might be very useful to him; but instead of seeking after that which he most wants, and making use of his substance to furnish him with it, he spends it on his back and belly, in fine clothes and luxurious living; in rioting and drunkenness, in chambering and wantonness, at balls and plays, in taverns and brothel houses: or spiritual wisdom and knowledge; the means of which are reading the word, hearing the Gospel, frequent opportunities of attendance on a Gospel ministry, in season and out of season, and conversation with Gospel ministers and other Christians; but, instead of making use of these, he neglects, slights, and despises them. And it is asked, with some degree of indignation and admiration, why or to what purpose a fool is favoured with such means;
seeing he hath no heart to it? to wisdom; he does not desire it, nor to make use of the price or means, in order to obtain it; all is lost upon him; and it is hard to account for it why he should have this price, when he makes such an ill use of it.

Man's neglect of God's favour and his own interest is very absurd.

Though wealth cannot buy wisdom for those who do not love it, yet wisdom procures wealth (Proverbs 3:16; Proverbs 14:24).

We take Proverbs 17:16-21 together. This group beings with a proverb of the heartless, and ends with one of the perverse-hearted; and between these there are not wanting noticeable points of contact between the proverbs that follow one another.

16 Why the ready money in the hand of the fool;
To get wisdom when he has yet no heart?
The question is made pointed by זה, thus not: why the ready money when...? Is it to obtain wisdom? - the whole is but one question, the reason of which is founded in לבו אין (thus to be accented with Mugrash going before).
(Note: If we write ולב־ with Makkeph, then we have to accentuate לקנות חכמה with Tarcha Munach, because the Silluk word in this writing has not two syllables before the tone. This sequence of accents if found in the Codd. Ven. 1521, 1615, Basel 1619, while most editions have לקנות חכמה ולב־אין, which is false. But according to MSS we have ולב without Makkeph, and that is right according to the Makkeph rules of the metrical Accentuationssystem; vid., Torath Emeth, p. 40.)
The fool, perhaps, even makes some endeavours, for he goes to the school of the wise, to follow out their admonitions, קנה חכמה (Proverbs 4:5, etc.), and it costs him something (Proverbs 4:7), but all to no purpose, for he has no heart. By this it is not meant that knowledge, for which he pays his honorarium, remains, it may be, in his head, but goes not to his heart, and thus becomes an unfruitful theory; but the heart is equivalent to the understanding, in the sense in which the heart appears as the previous condition to the attainment of wisdom (Proverbs 18:15), and as something to be gained before all (Proverbs 15:32), viz., understanding, as the fitting intellectual and practical habitus to the reception, the appropriation, and realization of wisdom, the ability rightly to comprehend the fulness of the communicated knowledge, and to adopt it as an independent possession, that which the Greek called νοῦς, as in that "golden proverb" of Democrates: πολλοὶ πολυμαθέες νοῦν οὐκ ἔχουσι, or as in Luke 24:25, where it is said that the Lord opened τὸν νοῦν of His disciples to understand the Scriptures. In the lxx a distich follows Proverbs 17:16, which is made up of 19b and 20b, and contains a varied translation of these two lines.

A price - Opportunities and abilities of getting it. No heart - Neither discretion to discern the worth of wisdom, nor any sincere desire to get it.