Proverbs 30:6

Proverbs 30:6, in plain English

Don't twist God's words or add your own interpretations to them, or God will expose you as a liar. His word is complete and doesn't need your improvements.

Why it's here

Agur is protecting his listeners from a real temptation: taking God's truth and reshaping it to fit what we want or what our culture demands. In his day, false prophets did exactly this—they'd add to God's words or soften them. His warning is timeless because we still do this, just in different ways. When we bend Scripture to justify what we want, we're calling God a liar.

Who's speaking

Agur, offering protective wisdom

Where it sits in the story

This echoes warnings throughout Scripture about false prophecy and false teachers. It's part of the larger biblical theme that God's word is sacred and not ours to revise—it's our job to submit to it, not improve it.

The scholarly reading

Agur warns against adding to God's words, threatening that such presumption will bring divine rebuke and expose the offender as a liar.

Language and setting

This prohibition echoes Deuteronomy 4:2 ('Do not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it') and Revelation 22:18, establishing what scholars term the 'closure formula' for sacred texts. The verb yōkīaḥ (rebuke/reprove) carries judicial weight—God will prosecute the case against one who interpolates into divine speech. The consequence is taʿamod lēʾ (you will be proven a liar)—a devastating indictment in wisdom literature where credibility constitutes one's fundamental social asset. This verse reflects growing canonicity consciousness in late biblical Judaism, where the scriptural corpus was increasingly conceived as sealed and inviolable. The placement immediately after affirming God's word creates a hermeneutical boundary: God's word is perfect and complete; human supplementation only corrupts.

Voice

Agur, articulating a prescriptive principle against textual and theological innovation.

Significance

This text became crucial for medieval and Reformation debates about ecclesiastical authority: does the church possess power to supplement Scripture (Catholic position) or does such addition constitute presumptive corruption (Protestant position)? The verse stands as one of Scripture's own arguments for its own sufficiency.

4Who has ascended to heaven and come down? Who has gathered the wind in His hands? Who has bound up the waters in His cloak? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name, and what is the name of His Son— surely you know!

5Every word of God is flawless; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him.

6Do not add to His words, lest He rebuke you and prove you a liar.

7Two things I ask of You— do not refuse me before I die:

8Keep falsehood and deceitful words far from me. Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the bread that is my portion.

Read all of Proverbs 30 — A different voice — Agur, who says: I am too stupid to be a man. Then he writes some of the most brilliant observations in the entire book.