What is the tongue of the learned (Isaiah 50:4)?

Although the translation of this scripture is a little difficult, arising out of the ambiguity of the word rendered "learned," the sense is simple and easily apprehended. The Hebrew word in this passage signifies, in different parts of the verb, or in words formed from it, 'to train,' 'to teach,' or 'to learn.' If this is remembered, it will at once be perceived that the word "learned," in the last clause of our verse, would be better rendered, "learner," or, as many prefer, "disciples." This change, moreover, brings out, in a still more striking way, the wondrous place of subjection and humility which our blessed Lord took here as a servant. In verse 1, He speaks as Jehovah; in verses 2, 3, He declares His almighty power in creation and redemption; and then, in verse 4, we are permitted to behold Him down here in all His lowly grace as the teacher of His people, and as such entirely dependent upon God for the words He received and communicated. (Compare John 12:49.) He thus says, "The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned" (the same word as at end of verse), of those who are taught or instructed, "that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: He wakeneth morning by morning, He wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learner," or as "disciples." What an example! And what a blessed lesson for all the Lord's servants! The power to speak the message, and the manner of its delivery, must all come from Himself; and, together with this, there must be the maintenance of constant dependence, the suited condition of soul, in order to hear and to receive the words He would put into our mouths. The apostles surely understood this when they said, "We will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word."

Although the translation of this scripture is a little difficult, arising out of the ambiguity of the word rendered "learned," the sense is simple and easily apprehended. The Hebrew word in this passage signifies, in different parts of the verb, or in words formed from it, 'to train,' 'to teach,' or 'to learn.' If this is remembered, it will at once be perceived that the word "learned," in the last clause of our verse, would be better rendered, "learner," or, as many prefer, "disciples." This change, moreover, brings out, in a still more striking way, the wondrous place of subjection and humility which our blessed Lord took here as a servant. In verse 1, He speaks as Jehovah; in verses 2, 3, He declares His almighty power in creation and redemption; and then, in verse 4, we are permitted to behold Him down here in all His lowly grace as the teacher of His people, and as such entirely dependent upon God for the words He received and communicated. (Compare John 12:49.) He thus says, "The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned" (the same word as at end of verse), of those who are taught or instructed, "that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: He wakeneth morning by morning, He wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learner," or as "disciples." What an example! And what a blessed lesson for all the Lord's servants! The power to speak the message, and the manner of its delivery, must all come from Himself; and, together with this, there must be the maintenance of constant dependence, the suited condition of soul, in order to hear and to receive the words He would put into our mouths. The apostles surely understood this when they said, "We will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word."

The word "learned" in verse 4, really means a disciple or one who is instructed, and our Lord took that humble and subject place when He came as the Servant of the will of God. He had indeed the opened ear, as was also predicted in Psalm 40, and He took that place that He might be man's true neighbour, and speak the word in season to him that is weary. Morning by morning He heard the words He was to speak to others; hence His own statement to His disciples, "the words that I speak to you I speak not of Myself (John 14:10).

"The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: He wakeneth morning by morning, He wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learner."

We need not for our purpose go further. The prophet does, and shows us Christ in His suffering and rejection plainly enough. Here, however, we have already the contrast we are seeking. It is the Almighty who is come in servant's form: it is He who is strangely taking the place of obedience and acquiring the tongue of the learned for the ministry of grace to individual need, if the nation at large reject Him. For this He becomes Himself a learner, and is wakened morning by morning to "hear" as that. Yet it is the One who dries up the sea and makes the rivers a wilderness. Who shall put these things together? For satisfaction to the intellect, no one can. Yet even the intellect may be satisfied another way: namely, in the assured conviction of its inability to understand one's own being — to know how "spirit and soul and body" make up one man. Is it so wonderful, then, that there should be modes of the Infinite that baffle us altogether? or that "no man knoweth the Son but the Father?"

So real was the dependence of the Lord in His humility upon earth that He said, “He wakens morning by morning, He wakens Mine ear to hear as the learned (or as the disciple).” He whose commands all creation heard and obeyed became a Man, and as a disciple had His ear made attentive by His Instructor. Readily that ear was wakened to be instructed, that He might speak the succouring word that the Father gave Him day by day to communicate to those who were weary of the hollow shams of men and the world, and He could say, “The words which Thou hast given Me I have given them.”

Take another scripture, Isaiah 50, a further step on in the blessed history of this perfect Servant. He was a Divine Person, the One who had all power in His hand, yea "Upholding all things by the word of his power," and is heard saying here, "I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering" (Isa. 50:3). There we get His deity brought out, while the next verse presents Him as a dependant man. "The Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakens morning by morning, he wakens mine ear to hear as the learned" (or "learner" it should be) (Isa. 50:4). It is the same thing — one who listens. No one but Jehovah ever wakened Jesus, except the disciples once rudely, when they ought not to have done so (see Mark 4:38).

Thus the Lord God had not only "digged" the ears of the humble Jesus of Nazareth, but He "opened His ear," i.e., kept it open, to hear as the learned, in order that He, the lowly Servant, might know how to speak with the "tongue of the learned," a word in season to the weary. God wakened His ear morning by morning to hear as the learned. He opened His ear, and He was not rebellious, neither turned away back, so that He gave His back to the smiters, and His cheeks to them that plucked off the hair, and hid not His face from shame and spitting; ever the obedient Servant, as He was ever the obedient Son.

Again, if we add to these the completing testimony of "the Prophets" (see Isaiah 50:4-7), we get a yet fuller delineation of the devotedness and self-abnegation of this peerless Servant - the Servant of God's counsels, of the Father's will, and of Jehovah's glory, but also, of our necessities here, and of our blessedness when we are perfected! "The Lord God," He says, "hath given me the tongue of the learned that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned" (perhaps more properly learner, compare Isaiah 8:16, disciples, and Isaiah 54:13, children). "The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting." Surely no language could more touchingly express how truly He had emptied Himself to hecome the dependent Man upon earth! And here we may fittingly remark how suitably the ear, being that organ through which commands are received, and instruction acquired, is in the Scriptures referred to made the subject of the ordinance of Jehovah and of the prophetic teaching of David and Isaiah concerning God's faithful Servant, - the Lawgiver, the Psalmist and the Prophet thus uniting their testimony concerning Him who was to come "to do thy will, O God." Nothing could be more beautiful than the attitude of the Lord Jesus as listening morning by morning with the opened ear of a subject will, to take instructions from His Father ere He went forth to fulfil the assiduous service of each recurring day!

It is instructive to observe that the Lord Himself took the place of subjection. As the Servant of Jehovah He had the opened ear in both His ministry and His suffering, waiting for directions upon Him who sent Him. This spirit of subjection and obedience was according to prophecy: "The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of them that are taught, that I should know how to sustain with words him that is weary: he wakens morning by morning, he wakens mine ear to hear as they that are taught. The Lord GOD has opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away backward. I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair" (Isa. 50:4-6, R.V.). His ear was open as the true Prophet to hear, and what He heard He communicated to men. Thus He said to His disciples, "All things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you" (John 15:15).

Did the Jews question this? Did they say to Jehovah, as by-and-by the Gentiles will to the King coming in glory, "When saw we thee …" (Matt. 25:37-39)? Here is His answer by anticipation: "The Lord Jehovah has given me the tongue of the instructed, that I should know how to speak a word in season to the weary. He wakens morning by morning, he wakens mine ear to hear as the instructed" (v. 4). Nor this only. "The Lord Jehovah has opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, I turned not away back" (v. 5). Jehovah had deigned to become a man on earth, and here to walk in obedience, owning God; and this Christianity alone fully explains; for Father, Son, and Holy Ghost were most truly and equally Jehovah. And He, Who came thus to do the will of God as man here below, was, as we know, the Son, Who, Himself God and Jehovah, could look up and say, "The Lord Jehovah has opened mine ear," etc.