“Whoever teaches a fool is
Like one who glues potsherds together.
Whoever teaches a fool is
Like one who rouses a sleeper
From deep slumber.
Whoever tells a story to a fool
Tells it to a drowsy man.
At the end
He will say.
‘What is it?’”
Sirach says that whoever tries to teach a fool is like one trying to glue pieces of a broken pottery jar back together. Potsherds are broken pottery pieces. Thus this task would be like a giant jigsaw puzzle. Teaching a fool is like trying to wake someone up from a deep sleep. Even telling a story is useless, because the fool is like a half-asleep drowsy person who says at the end of the story, “What was that again?” Basically, trying to teach a fool is a waste of time. However, it is not totally impossible, but extremely difficult and challenging.
Eugene Finnegan Bible Project 