Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary

Adam Clarke Commentary

Add not thou unto his words - You can no more increase their value by any addition, than you can that of gold by adding any other metal to it. Take care that you do not any thing that this word forbids, nor leave undone any thing that it commands: for this is adding and diminishing in Scripture phrase.

Lest he reprove thee - Lest he try thy word by fire, as his has been tried; and it appear that, far from abiding the test, the fire shows thine to be reprobate silver; and so thou be found a falsifier of God's word, and a liar.

How amply has this been fulfilled in the case of the Romish Church! It has added all the gross stuff in the Apocrypha, besides innumerable legends and traditions, to the word of God! They have been tried by the refiner's fire. And this Church has been reproved, and found to be a liar, in attempting to filiate on the most holy God spurious writings discreditable to his nature.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

Men are not to mingle revealed truth with their own imaginations and traditions. In speculating on the unseen, the risk of error is indefinitely great, and that error God reproves by manifesting its falsehoods.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

Add thou not unto his words,.... To the words of God; as the Jews did, by joining their oral law, or the traditions of the elders, to the written word, and preferring them before it; and as the Papists, by making their unwritten traditions, and the sense and determinations of their church, equal to the Scriptures; and as all enthusiasts do, who set up their pretended dreams, visions, revelations, and prophecies, upon a foot with the word of God, or as superior to it; whereas that is, and that only, the rule and standard of faith and practice, and is a sufficient and perfect one; see Deuteronomy 4:2;

lest he reprove thee; that is, God; either by words or by blows, by threatenings and denunciations of his wrath and displeasure; or by chastisements and corrections for such daring pride, blasphemy, and wickedness; those who add to his words, he threatens to add plagues unto them, Revelation 22:18;

and thou be found a liar; a forger, speaker, and spreader of doctrinal lies, such doctrines as are contrary to the word of truth; not being built on that, but upon human inventions, and additions to it.

Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Add … words — implying that his sole reliance was on God‘s all-sufficient teaching.

reprove thee — or, “convict thee” - and so the falsehood will appear.

John Trapp Complete Commentary

Proverbs 30:6 Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.

Ver. 6. Add thou not unto his words.] As the Jews at this day do by their traditions, which they arrogantly call mashlamnutha, completio, perfectio, (a) because they think that thereby the law is completed and perfected, as the Artemonites, and after them the schoolmen, corrupted the Scripture out of Aristotle and Theophrastus, turning all into questions and quillets. (b) As Mahomet joined his Alfurta, his service book, a horrible heap of all blasphemies, to the three parts of holy Scripture, as he divides them, the law, psalms, and gospel. As the Papists add their human inventions and unwritten verities, which they equalise unto, if not prefer before, the book of God, as appears by that heathenish decree of the Council of Trent. And when at the Council of Basil the Hussites denied to receive any doctrine that could not be proven by Scripture, Cardinal Cusan answered that Scriptures were not of the being of the Church, but of the well being, and that they were to be expounded according to the current rite of the Church, which, if it change its mind, the judgment of God is also changed. (c) Lastly, Such add to God’s word as wrest it and rack it; making it speak that which it never thought; causing it to go two miles where it would go but one; gnawing and tawing it to their own purposes, as the shoemaker taws (d) upper leather with his teeth. Tertullian calls Marcion the heretic, Mus Ponticus, of [from] his arroding and gnawing the Scripture, to make it serviceable to his errors.

Lest he reprove thee.] Both verbally and penally - both with words and blows. Lest he severely punish thee, as one that adds to his will, or imbaseth his coin.

And thou be found a liar.] As all Popish forgers and roisters at this day are found to be. God hath ever raised up such as have detected their impostures, and vindicated the purity and perfection of the sacred Scriptures.

Thomas Coke Commentary on the Holy Bible

Proverbs 30:6. Add thou not unto his words— That is, "Do not any thing contrary to what he commands." See Deuteronomy 4:2-32, &c.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

And as the word of God is pure, do not thou corrupt or abuse it, by adding to it thine own or other men’s inventions and opinions, and delivering or receiving of them in the name and as the words of God. He here forbids only adding to it, not diminishing from it, which yet is equally forbidden, Deuteronomy 4:2 12:32, because the Israelites then and always were, and others are, more prone to add than to diminish, because it is more easy to add under colour of interpreting, and because it is more agreeable to the humour of mankind, which is much delighted with its own inventions, as the experience of all ages showeth. Lest he reprove thee by words or deeds; by discovering thy folly, and bringing thee to deserved shame and punishment.

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible

6.Add thou not unto his words — Similar warnings are found elsewhere. Comp. Deuteronomy 4:2; Deuteronomy 12:32. The writer seems familiar with the older Scriptures. Compare also Revelation 22:18-19. These are solemn admonitions to which all teachers do well to take heed, and none more so than expositors, lest they make God say more or less than he has said, or something different from it, and thus be found liars before God — falsifiers of his truth. In vain may fallible man hope to escape all error in interpretation; but every one should bring to the work an honest mind to search after truth, and firmness sufficient to set forth his honest convictions.

Joseph Benson's Commentary of the Old and New Testaments

Proverbs 30:6. Add thou not unto his words — As the word of God is pure, do not thou corrupt it, by adding to it thine own or other men’s inventions, or opinions; lest he reprove thee — By words or deeds; by discovering thy folly, and bringing thee to deserved shame and punishment; and thou be found a liar — Delivering thy own fancies and notions in the name, and as the truths of God, and thus being guilty of the worst of forgeries.

George Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary

And not any thing contrary, Deuteronomy iv. 2., and xii. 32. --- Liar. Our Saviour condemned the false explanations of the Pharisees, as his Church does those of all heretics.

E.W. Bullinger's Companion Bible Notes

Add thou not, &c. A solemn warning based on Deuteronomy 4:2; Deuteronomy 12:32. Compare Galatians 1:1, Galatians 1:8, Galatians 1:9. Revelation 22:18, Revelation 22:19.

reprove thee. Emphatic = send a special reproof unto thee.

Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible - Unabridged

Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.

Add thou not unto his words - "above that which is written" (1 Corinthians 4:6), with a view of completing the divinely revealed doctrine with human glosses. Rome, by adding to the written Word, oral tradition and the Fathers, transgresses this precept (Isaiah 8:20).

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(6) Lest he reprove thee.—Or, convict thee of thy falsehood.

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Add

Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:32; Revelation 22:18,19

and

Job 13:7-9; 1 Corinthians 15:15