Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’”

This passage will come up in the Bible study I lead last week and I was also asked about it after Sunday School a week ago last Sunday. God didn’t mention touching or not touching. So was Eve “adding to God’s word”?

It is an understandable idea that she was wrong to do so (though she never directly heard God’s prohibition so it all depends on how specific Adam was as a teacher), but I simply don’t find it compelling.

First of all, think what would happen if you told your child to not view certain channels of the TV. Then later you catch him scanning the directory reading all the program descritptions of those channels. Wouldn’t you think he was trying to disobey you?

So Eve is in fact stating a reasonable interpretation of what God has said. Now it might be different if the fruit was great for burning and Satan sent a blizzard to freeze Adam and Eve to death. Then, if the fruit could be a source of heat better than anything else available, and Eve claimed they couldn’t use them in that way because they were forbidden to touch them, she would be adding to God’s Word. But in the context of simply dealing with the prohibited fruit, I think she was right that God was telling them not to handle it.

Also, when we find other forbidden foods in the Pentateuch, we find that touching is also frowned upon.

Furthermore, when we come to the Apostolic preaching of the New Testament we find that witnesses to God’s word also freely add to it and paraphrase it. They handle Scripture accurately but often no verbatim. (This doesn’t mean the details are not important. It just means they are not important in addressing some contexts.)
It seems to me that in Eve we see the Spirit and Bride, having contemplating God’s Word, speaking it back with new insight. God sends His Word (Jesus) and then afterward the Spirit and the Bride say, “Come,” Lord Jesus.