The Lord Jehovah hath given me the tongue of the instructed, that I should know how to succour by a word him that is weary. He wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the instructed.
In Isaiah 50 the Speaker is Jehovah, who declares His almighty power in creation. Then verse 4 shows Him as a learner whose ear God wakens each morning. Who is this Servant, and why does such power need a trained tongue?
One Hebrew root stands behind both mentions of teaching in the verse. Older translations render it "the learned" where the ESV has "those who are taught":
The Hebrew word in this passage means, in its different forms, "to train," "to teach," or "to learn." Once you remember that, you can see at once that the word "learned" in the last clause of our verse would be better rendered "learner," or, as many prefer, "disciples." This change brings out even more clearly the wonderful place of subjection and humility our blessed Lord took here as a servant. In verse 1 He speaks as Jehovah. In verses 2 and 3 He declares His almighty power in creation and redemption. Then, in verse 4, He lets us see Him down here in all His lowly grace as the teacher of His people — and as such wholly dependent on God for the words He received and passed on.
Reason cannot fit the two halves of the chapter together:
It is the Almighty who has come in a servant's form. It is He who is strangely taking the place of obedience. He is acquiring the tongue of the learned for the ministry of grace to individual need, if the nation as a whole rejects Him. For this He becomes Himself a learner, and is wakened morning by morning to "hear" as such. Yet it is the One who dries up the sea and makes the rivers a wilderness. Who can put these things together? For the satisfaction of the intellect, no one can.
The One who dries up the sea also stoops to one exhausted person:
And yet He is the One qualified to do a service as small as dropping a word of comfort into the ear of the weary. What vast extremes there are in His service!
He did not learn this art in heaven. It cost Him dearly:
He who had until then commanded, who "spoke, and it came to be," now learns obedience in suffering. Each of the four God-given accounts of His perfect life makes this known to us. It was in this school that He learned the rare and precious art of sympathy and of speaking a word to the weary — the school of weariness and weeping, of hunger and poverty, of contact with every form of human misery and grief, and of the visible effects of sin. He did not learn it in the untroubled dignities of heaven. His sympathy is the result of dearly-bought experience, and is therefore always effective.
One writer sets this verse beside the Gospel record of Jesus rising long before daylight to pray:
He had been occupied early and late with the sorrows of others. Yet here we find Him well ahead of the dawn, while it was still dark, to have communion with His Father. And what were the communications between such a Father and such a Son? The Old Testament tells us: "He wakens morning by morning, He wakens My ear to hear as the instructed." The New Testament tells us how He went a great while before day into a desert place, and there He prayed. And He withdrew to be with God — He Himself the Lord God — before starting the day's work. We fail far more in this inward closeness with our Father. Can we wonder, then, that we fail so much in outward labour? Be assured, only there will you find the secret of holy strength and endurance in service.
The timing is part of the gift, not an accident of it:
He speaks His word to the weary, we read, "in season." That is, He knows the exact moment when to whisper into the wearied ear, and just when to support the breaking heart.
In the verse the ear comes before the tongue:
A man who is always doing will be apt to do too much. Such a person needs to ponder the deeply practical words of the perfect Servant: "He wakens morning by morning, He wakens My ear to hear as the learned." This is an indispensable part of the servant's business. The servant must often stand in his master's presence to know what he has to do.
Where the listening is skipped, the speaking does damage rather than good:
If we do not gain something of the "ear of the learned" on the mountain tops, we shall never gain the "tongue of the learned" in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, even though we may speak with the tongues of men and of angels. We shall only tire people with unsuitable words, instead of speaking words in season to the weary.
- Ear first. The ear feeds the tongue. The servant "must often stand in his master's presence" to know what to do.
- Ear opened. In verses 2–3 He declares almighty power. In verse 4 He takes the learner's place: "the Almighty who has come in a servant's form."
- Ear schooled. He learned this art in "weariness and weeping, hunger and poverty." His sympathy comes from "dearly-bought experience."
- Tongue timed. He speaks the word "in season" — He knows "the exact moment when to whisper into the wearied ear."
- Tongue reaching. The One who dries up the sea does the small service of comforting one tired heart: "What vast extremes there are in His service!"
The Lord Jehovah hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious; I turned not away back.
The Servant of the Lord speaks these words. Commentators read them as the voice of Christ, describing His own life of listening obedience. The verse turns on two things: an ear that God opens, and a will that neither resists nor retreats.
The chapter does not start with a servant. It starts with the One who covers the sky with darkness. Only then does it show Him as a dependent man.
He was a Divine Person, the One who had all power in His hand, indeed "upholding all things by the word of His power." Here we hear Him say, "I clothe the heavens with blackness and make sackcloth their covering" (Isa. 50:3). There we get His deity brought out, while the next verse presents Him as a dependent man.
Scripture uses more than one word for the servant's ear: one is bored through, one is dug open, and here God opens it. One writer sets this verse between the other two — not at His birth, not at His death, but on the road in between.
The "boring" of the ear found its answer when the Lord willingly went into death. In that death He took the need and interests of Master, wife, and children as His own. The "digging" of the ear did not come after He became a servant; it came so that He might become one. So God formed Him to be a servant and fitted a body for Him. In that body, though He was a Son, He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. Isaiah looks at a time in between. He is not speaking of His birth, and not of His death, but of His path in life. There the opened ear marks lowly, intelligent attention to His Father's will. In fallen man, the closed ear means disobedience or indifference to what God says.
Commentators differ on how closely to link this verse with Psalm 40:6 and Exodus 21:6. In Exodus a servant chose to stay with his master for life. Some read the three as one unfolding story:
He undertook the service freely, and God prepared a body for Him. "He wakens My ear to hear" as the learned, "the Lord God has opened My ear" — that is, to learn down here. God formed the place of service and prepared a body, and Christ says, "Behold, I have come to do your will, O God." … Then God opened His ears morning by morning. At the last, according to Exodus 21:6, He had completed His full service. He loved the One whose due service He had performed, His wife, His children. So in death He became a servant for ever.
Others keep the passages apart while agreeing on their common subject:
The reference is not to Exodus 21:6, and not to Isaiah 50:5. Psalm 40:6 stands apart from both, though all three have Messiah at their centre.
The second half of the verse sounds negative. It describes a positive choice. He would not step off the road when He saw where it led.
It was in this way that He walked the path of obedience. Creation's Controller became the obedient Servant! But unfaltering obedience in the middle of disobedience meant suffering. God gave Him instruction for the path. God had uncovered His ear (v. 5). Unlike the "rebellious son," He obeyed. He did not turn backward to escape the sorrows and the shame involved. He took the path appointed. He walked every step to the glory of God. He never had to take back a word. He never had to retrace a step.
What Isaiah wrote can be watched happening on the night Jesus was arrested. He knew exactly what was coming, and moved toward it.
A mere man, with the slightest knowledge of what was coming, would surely have turned back. Of a divine Person alone can we say, in an absolute sense, that He knew all things. And only of a perfect Man who knew all things can we say that He "went forth." He submits to man, but in obedience to the Father. He was "not rebellious," and He did not turn backward (Isa. 50:5).
This obedience is not just something to admire. It is the way into rest for us too.
It is the rest we enter into by submission and obedience to the Father's will. For what was the yoke of Jesus that He tells us to take upon us? It was what we have just seen in Him — that perfect obedience which submitted itself in everything to the Father's will. The words of Isaiah 50:3-6 put it before us in a wonderful way. He who was Jehovah (v. 3) has taken in grace the path of the learner.
- Voice — The One who darkens the heavens is the same One whose ear God opens morning by morning. Deity and dependence stand side by side here.
- Ear — The opened ear is not His birth and not His death. It marks His daily life: lowly, intelligent attention to His Father's will, the opposite of fallen man's closed ear.
- Will — He chose this obedience; no one forced it. Unlike the rebellious son, He did not turn back to escape the shame the path involved.
- Cost — Steady obedience among disobedient people meant suffering. He walked the appointed path anyway, and never had to take back a word or retrace a step.
- Yoke — His obedience becomes our rest: He walked the learner's path first, and now calls us to take the same yoke.