“Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar.”
The Word of Eloah is trustworthy; it has no defects and flaws, nothing false or misleading. It is therefore safe to trust in that Word. So sure is God’s Word that to trust in it is to trust in Him. To add to or take from God’s perfect Word is to question Him, to lie about His integrity, and to imply that His Word cannot be trusted. In effect, it is to call Him a liar. And God will not countenance such a lying accusation against Himself.
“God” is “Eloah” here; the only time the name occurs in Proverbs (although it is common in the Book of Job, where it appears 41 times).
Every word of God is flawless: Extraordinarily, the word translated “word” here, “imrah”, occurs only this once in the whole of the Proverbs. It does occur 25 times in the Psalms (19 times in Psalm 119 alone). It may be differentiated from other words describing God’s Word in that it speaks especially of His promises. This can be illustrated by its usages in Psalm 119: God’s “imrah” becomes His “promise” to the righteous (vv 38, 58, 76, 82, 140, 162), which is sweet (v 103) and able to renew and sustain the believer (vv 50, 116, 154). His “imrah” is also worthy of meditation (v 148), as it encompasses salvation (vv 41, 170).
“Flawless” is “pure” (KJV), “purified” (NET), “proven true” (RSV), or “tried” (ASV), as in the fire: “All the words of God are tried in the fire” (LXX). This Hebrew word is “tsaraph”, which is used elsewhere of purifying metal: “The words of the LORD are flawless, like silver refined [‘tsaraph’] in a furnace of clay, purified seven times” (Psa 12:6). As the Word of God has been tested and refined by fire, so those who follow God’s Word will be tested, and “refined [‘tsaraph’] like silver” (Psa 66:10).
Other passages also compare the Word of God to metal that has been purified: Psalms 19:9,10; 119:140 (where “promises” is the Hebrew “imrah”); and Proverbs 15:26. Numerous other passages also speak of believers having their faith tried as by fire, either bringing them to perfection or to rejection:
“But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver” (Mal 3:2,3).
“These [trials]have come so that your faith — of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire — may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed” (1Pet 1:7; cf also Isa 1:25; 48:10,11; Jer 6:29,30; 9:7; Ezek 22:20,21; 24:11,12; Dan 11:35; Zech 13:9; 1Cor 3:13).
God is a “shield” (“magen” (cf Gen 15:1; Psa 3:3; 7:10; 28:7; 47:9; 59:11; 84:9; 89:18; etc) to those who take refuge in Him, or who “flee to Him for protection [‘chacah’].” Psalm 18:30 (cf 2Sam 22:31) practically reproduces this whole verse:
“The word of the LORD is flawless [‘tsaraph’]. He is a shield [‘magen’] for all who take refuge [‘chasa’] in him.”
“Chasa” (“to take refuge”) is used 37 times in the Old Testament: “Apart from two exceptions (Jdgs 9:15 and Isa 30:2), the verb is used exclusively of seeking refuge in Yahweh. As a ‘rock’ (Deut 32:37), a ‘shield’ (Psa 144:2; Prov 30:5), and even a mothering bird with outstretched wings (Psa 57:1; 61:4), Yahweh can be trusted. In fact, it is better to seek refuge in God than any human being, including rulers (Psa 118:8,9)” (NIDOTTE). Generally, also see Proverbs 18:10 (although it does not use the same word): “The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.”
The figure of a nesting mother bird, sheltering and protecting her young with her overshadowing wings, is a powerful image. The fledgling in the nest will not understand this concept intellectually, but it surely does understand it in practice. There is a kinship and a oneness in such a picture. The LORD our God is our Near Kinsman, and He reminds us of this fact whenever we think of His relationship to His only-begotten Son, and our relationship with that same Son in faith. In love, He sought us out and made us His own; we are nothing less than His special treasure.
There is nothing automatic, nothing mechanical, in such a “refuge”. True faith, in God’s Word, is a visceral reliance on Him as a Protector, as the only Protector! Those who flee to Him to take refuge do more than memorize true Bible principles — they seek to live by them! They yearn and groan, in dark nights when despair feels close at hand, and out of that darkness they cry, ‘Where shall we go, O LORD? You are the only refuge in a cold, heartless world! There is no other place, and no other person, to shelter us; it is You alone.’
Do not add to his words: God’s warning in this respect is twofold. He spoke through Moses in Deuteronomy 4:2:
“Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the LORD your God that I give you” (also cf Deut 12:32; Eccl 3:14; Jer 26:2).
We must not “add to” or “take from” God’s word. To do either is equivalent to what Paul calls “distorting the word of God” (2Cor 4:2, NIV), or “handling the word of God deceitfully” (KJV).
At the end of the last book of the New Testament, the LORD makes plain that He has not deviated one iota from this commandment. Through His Son He speaks:
“I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book” (Rev 22:18,19).
The Word of God was just as sacred, just as untouchable, to the Lord Jesus and his apostles, as it was to Moses and the wise men of the Old Testament.
Agur stresses only the ‘Do not add to’ portion of the command, and not the ‘Do not take away from’, but it has the same effect nonetheless. Anyone who possesses the purified Word of God (v 5), and who then ‘adds’ something to it, whether an additional would-be ‘revelation’, a thoughtless interpretation, an unwarranted assumption, or a wrong application — in a manner to suggest that his addition possesses the same authority as the original — is polluting the Word of God with a foreign substance, and changing its essential character. He is thereby lessening the truthfulness and the flawlessness of the whole, and ‘taking away’ from its intended effectiveness. This thought should make us doubly careful not to highjack any part of the Bible for our own agenda, not to search the Bible for a special justification for our own personal crotchet, and not to pick and choose what we like while rejecting or ignoring the rest.
This necessarily raises the question: ‘Is any interpretation whatsoever an example of “adding to” the Word of God? And if so, then how can we ever begin to interpret anything?’
Of course, every interpretation is not “adding to” the Word of God. There are the essentials of the faith, what we usually call the “first principles”. While we continue to study these, certainly, we understand that many Bible passages prove them. We risk going too far, however, when we advance a personal interpretation of some relatively uncertain matter (that is, something that is not an integral part of first-principles doctrine). When we advance speculative ideas, we ought always to preface our remarks with the caveat (explicit or implicit) that this is an opinion and nothing more. We should not insist upon others accepting our interpretations on non-essential matters. Neither should we enforce our ideas (explicitly or implicitly) through discrimination, shunning, prejudice, or any other adverse treatment of those who do not agree with us.
Especially are these warnings needed in the area of prophetic interpretations, where the temptation is strong to put forward speculative ideas about future events, and even to present those ideas as practically equivalent to the Word of God itself. Here is surely the greatest danger of “adding to” the word of prophecy through our personal expectations. Our history as a community should show how many times such speculations have been proven wrong by the passage of a few years.
Or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar: In Deuteronomy 4, the consequences of adding to or taking from the Word of God are seen in “what the LORD did at Baal Peor”, when He “destroyed from among you everyone who followed” other gods (Deut 4:3) — 24,000 in the great plague (Num 25:9). It doesn’t get any more serious than that!
In Revelation 22, the threatened consequences are explicit: God will “add to” such a man all “the plagues described in this book”. (Is “this book” only the Book of Revelation, or everything that went before as well? It scarcely matters: either is a terrifying prospect.) And then, as if the first were not enough, and for good measure, God promises that He “will take away from” such a man “his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book”.
Such warnings as these amplify Agur’s relatively light warning: “He will rebuke you and prove you a liar.” Notice, though, a further connection in Revelation 22. Just before the words of warning cited above, there are the frightening words of verse 15: “Outside…” — ‘Outside’ what? the gates of the city, where the tree of life is (v 14) — “Outside are… those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters.” It is an awful list of the most abominable creatures in the Lord’s sight; but he is not finished. He must add “and everyone who loves and practices falsehood” — i.e., every liar!
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One