What Does Deuteronomy 4:2 Mean?
You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor shave anything away from it, that you may guard the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.THE KEY
To keep the word is to guard its given measure from both expansion and erasure.
THE MEANING
The word meets you with its measure already set: adding to it changes it, while cutting from it leaves something absent. Keeping it now means guarding what has been given whole.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that a command can remain intact while its boundaries are quietly edited: added burdens and removed demands both alter the word.
THE ROOT
תִּשְׁמְרוּ
tishmeru
GROWS FROM
שמר
sh-m-r
To guard, watch over, or keep.
“guard” in this verse is tishmeru. The Hebrew for “keep” carries the sense of guarding what is entrusted. The verse presents keeping the commandments as watchfulness that preserves their given measure, against both addition and loss.
ALSO GROWS
shomer: Keeper, guardian, watcher.
שֹׁמֵר
This branch makes keeping an active watch over what has been entrusted, rather than merely retaining it.
mishmeret: Guard, watch, charge.
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
The word for a charge or guard duty echoes the verse’s picture of the commandments as something to preserve intact.
הַדָּבָר
ha-davar
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
To speak; a spoken word or matter.
Davar can name both a word and a matter, joining what is spoken to what it carries. The verse’s boundary surrounds the whole spoken command, not a version reshaped by adding or removing pieces.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: He spoke; to speak.
דִּבֵּר
This branch keeps the word connected to speech: what is guarded is what has been spoken and commanded.
devarim: Words; matters.
דְּבָרִים
The plural form carries the same word-and-matter sense, underscoring that the command has substance that can be changed by addition or subtraction.
THE PATTERN
The received word is guarded by preserving its measure, without adding to it or removing from it.
Every word that I command you, guard to do it. You shall not add to it, nor scrape away from it.Do not add to his words, lest he reprove you, and you be found a liar.And if anyone takes away from the words of the scroll of this prophecy, God will take away his portion from the tree of life and from the set-apart city, and from the things written in this scroll.THE THREAD
How does a young man cleanse his way? By guarding it according to your word.“Taking heed” carries the same shamar root as “keep,” and “word” is davar. The psalm shows keeping as watchful attention shaped by the word itself.
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