Verse 6. - Add thou not unto his words. God's will, as announced in revelation, is to be simply accepted and acted upon, not watered down, not overstrained. This injunction had already been given in the old Law (Deuteronomy 4:2; Deuteronomy 12:32); it is repeated in the New Testament with awful emphasis (Revelation 22:18, 19). No human speculations or traditions may be mingled with God's words; the glosses and explanations and definitions, affixed by rabbinical ingenuity to plain enactments, and proved to be false in morality and fatal to vital religion, are a commentary on the succeeding sentence, Lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar. The reproof is found in the consequences of such additions; the results to which they lead are such as show that no who asserts that these things are contained in the Word of God is a liar.
30:4, there is a prophetic notice of Him who came down from heaven to be our Instructor and Saviour, and then ascended into heaven to be our Advocate. The Messiah is here spoken of as a Person distinct from the Father, but his name as yet secret. The great Redeemer, in the glories of his providence and grace, cannot be found out to perfection. Had it not been for Christ, the foundations of the earth had sunk under the load of the curse upon the ground, for man's sin. Who, and what is the mighty One that doeth all this? There is not the least ground to suspect anything wanting in the word of God; adding to his words opens the way to errors and corruptions.
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.
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.