The Lord Yahweh has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with words him who is weary. He awakens morning by morning, he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught.
The Lord Yahweh has opened my ear. I was not rebellious. I have not turned back.
I gave my back to those who beat me, and my cheeks to those who plucked off the hair. I didn’t hide my face from shame and spitting.
For the Lord Yahweh will help me. Therefore I have not been confounded. Therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I won’t be disappointed.
He who justifies me is near. Who will bring charges against me? Let us stand up together. Who is my adversary? Let him come near to me.
Behold, the Lord Yahweh will help me! Who is he who will condemn me? Behold, they will all grow old like a garment. The moths will eat them up.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv4, 6 To him that is oppressed by affliction and misery.
To him that is oppressed by affliction and misery.
The Prophet doth represent here the person and charge of them that are justly called to the ministry of God’s word.
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As they that are taught, and made meet by him.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv4–9 Isa 50:4 The Lord GOD hath given me the…
Isa 50:4 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 learned.
Ver. 4. The Lord God.] Heb., The sovereign self-being.
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Hath given me.] Me, Isaiah; but much more Jesus Christ, the arch-prophet of his Church, who "spake as never man spoke." {Joh 7:46} See Mat 7:28-29 Luk 4:22. "Grace was poured into his lips," {Psa 45:2} and it was no less poured out of his lips, while together with his words there went forth a power, and he could persuade as he pleased; for what reason? "God had blessed him" (ib.).
The tongue of the learned.] A learned and elaborate speech it had need to be that shall affect the heart. {Mat 13:52} Not every dolt can do it; but he who is "an interpreter, one among a thousand" {Job 33:23} who can speak as the oracles of God, {1Pe 4:11} sell oil to the wiser virgins, {Mat 25:9} "comfort the feebleminded, support the weak, be patient or forbearant toward all men." {1Th 5:14} O quam hoc non est omnium! Such a choice man, thus taught of God, is worth his weight in gold. Such a one was Luther, such was Latimer (who was confessorgeneral to all Protestants troubled in mind), Bradford, Greenham, Dod, Sibbes, &c.
That I might know how to speak a word in season.] Tempestivare, to time or season a word, to set it "on the wheels," as Solomon phraseth it, {Pro 25:11} that it may be "as apples of gold in pictures of silver," not only precious for matter, but delectable for order. {Ecc 12:10} Surely such a speaker "hath joy by the answer of his mouth; and a word spoken in his season how good is it!" {Pro 15:23} This is the right medicine for the soul (as heathens also hammered at), far beyond all philosophical discourses, or any other consolatiunculae creaturulae, as Luther fitly expresseth it.
He awakeneth morning by morning.] {a} He constantly calleth me up betime, as a master doth his scholar to his book and business, for the which the morn is fittest. Christ’s indefatigable assiduity in teaching his perverse countrymen, left them without all excuse. {Joh 15:22}
To hear as the learned,] i.e., Attentively, as those that would be learned, and are therefore φνληκοοι, desirous to hear. Aristotle calleth hearing ‘the learned sense.’
{a} Indesinenter me informat Spiritu, non autem per momenta, ut omnes prophetas alios. - Jun.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv4–9 God having asserted his own power, to show the…
God having asserted his own power, to show the groundlessness of the infidelity of the Jews, he proceeds to show what excellent and effectual means he used to bring them to repentance and salvation; which he mentions as a great aggravation of their unbelief and rebellion, which by this means was without all excuse. This and the following passages may be in some sort understood of the prophet Isaiah, though but obscurely and imperfectly; but they are far more evidently and eminently verified in Christ, and indeed seem to be meant directly of him. For seeing there are many other passages in this prophecy which are directly meant of Christ, and of his ministry, and not at all of the prophet, why may not this be added to the number of them? especially considering that there is nothing here which forceth us to understand this place of Isaiah, and several of these passages are expounded of Christ in the New Testament, as is confessed. Besides, this seems to suit best with the coherence; for according to this exposition the same person speaketh here who hath spoken in all the foregoing verses of the chapter, even the Lord himself considered as man, because he was both God and man, as is abundantly evident from many scriptures, both of the Old and New Testament, as hath been already proved, and will hereafter be more fully evinced.
The tongue of the learned; an ability of speaking plainly, and convincingly, and persuadingly, and in all points so as becometh a person taught of God, and filled with all Divine and heavenly wisdom and knowledge, and with a singular skill of winning souls, and of working upon men’s hearts and consciences.
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Him that is weary; burdened with the sense of his sad and deplorable condition, in which case a word of comfort is most seasonable and acceptable. This was the proper and principal design of Christ’s ministry, to give rest and comfort to distressed souls, according to what is said with respect to this place, Mat 11:28; and all the doctrines, reproofs, and threatenings of Christ were directed to this end, to make men fit for comfort and salvation.
He wakeneth, to wit, me, the pronoun being oft understood; or, as it follows, mine ear. Morning by morning; from time to time, and continually.
He wakeneth mine ear to hear; because human nature is of itself weak and slothful, he by his Divine power assisteth and stirreth me up to the observation and practice of all his commands and my duties.
As the learned; either,
1. As learned men or teachers use to awaken their scholars to hear and learn of them from time to time; or rather,
2. As those that are or desire and endeavour, up to be learned use to hear with all possible attention and diligence; for this title of learned is in the former part of the verse given not to the teacher, who is said to be God, but to the person taught by him.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v4 Our Lord Jesus, having proved himself able to save,…
Our Lord Jesus, having proved himself able to save, here shows himself as willing as he is able to save, here shows himself as willing as he is able. We suppose the prophet Isaiah to say something of himself in these verses, engaging and encouraging himself to go on in his work as a prophet, notwithstanding the many hardships he met with, not doubting but that God would stand by him and strengthen him; but, like David, he speaks of himself as a type of Christ, who is here prophesied of and promised to be the Saviour.
I. As an acceptable preacher. Isaiah, a a prophet, was qualified for the work to which he was called, so were the rest of God's prophets, and others whom he employed as his messengers; but Christ was anointed with the Spirit above his fellows. To make the man of God perfect, he has, 1. The tongue of the learned, to know how to give instruction, how to speak a word in season to him that is weary, Isa 50:4. God, who made man's mouth, gave Moses the tongue of the learned, to speak for the terror and conviction of Pharaoh, Exo 4:11, Exo 4:12. He gave to Christ the tongue of the learned, to speak a word in season for the comfort of those that are weary and heavily laden under the burden of sin, Mat 11:28. Grace was poured into his lips, and they are said to drop sweet-smelling myrrh. See what is the best learning of a minister, to know how to comfort troubled consciences, and to speak pertinently, properly, and plainly, to the various cases of poor souls. An ability to do this is God's gift, and it is one of the best gifts, which we should covet earnestly. Let us repose ourselves in the many comfortable words which Christ has spoken to the weary. 2. The ear of the learned, to receive instruction. Prophets have as much need of this as of the tongue of the learned; for they must deliver what they are taught and no other, must hear the word from God's mouth diligently and attentively, that they may speak it exactly, Eze 3:17. Christ himself received that he might give. None must undertake to be teachers who have not first been learners. Christ's apostles were first disciples, scribes instructed unto the kingdom of heaven, Mat 13:52. Nor is it enough to hear, but we must hear as the learned, hear and understand, hear and remember, hear as those that would learn by what we hear. Those that would hear as the learned must be awake, and wakeful; for we are naturally drowsy and sleepy, and unapt to hear at all, or we hear by the halves, hear and do not heed. Our ears need to be wakened; we need to have something said to rouse us, to awaken us out of our spiritual slumbers, that we may hear as for our lives. We need to be awakened morning by morning, as duly as the day returns, to be awakened to do the work of the day in its day. Our case calls for continual fresh supplies of divine grace, to free us from the dulness we contract daily. The morning, when our spirits are most lively, is a proper time for communion with God; then we are in the best frame both to speak to him (my voice shalt thou hear in the morning) and to hear from him. The people came early in the morning to hear Christ in the temple (Luk 21:38), for, it seems, his were morning lectures. And it is God that wakens us morning by morning. If we do any thing to purpose in his service, it is he who, as our Master, calls us up; and we should doze perpetually if he did not waken us morning by morning.
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II. As a patient sufferer, Isa 50:5, Isa 50:6. One would think that he who was commissioned and qualified to speak comfort to the weary should meet with no difficulty in his work, but universal acceptance. It is however quite otherwise; he has both hard work to do and hard usage to undergo; and here he tells us with what undaunted constancy he went through with it. We have no reason to question but that the prophet Isaiah went on resolutely in the work to which God had called him, though we read not of his undergoing any such hardships as are here supposed; but we are sure that the prediction was abundantly verified in Jesus Christ: and here we have, 1. His patient obedience in his doing work. "The Lord God has not only wakened my ear to hear what he says, but has opened my ear to receive it, and comply with it" (Psa 40:6, Psa 40:7, My ear hast thou opened; then said I, Lo, I come); for when he adds, I was not rebellious, neither turned away back, more is implied than expressed - that he was willing, that though he foresaw a great deal of difficulty and discouragement, though he was to take pains and give constant attendance as a servant, though he was to empty himself of that which was very great and humble himself to that which was very mean, yet he did not fly off, did not fail, nor was discouraged. He continued very free and forward to his work even when he came to the hardest part of it. Note, As a good understanding in the truths of God, so a good will to the work and service of God, is from the grace of God. 2. His obedient patience in his suffering work. I call it obedient patience because he was patient with an eye to his Father's will, thus pleading with himself, This commandment have I received of my Father, and thus submitting to God, Not as I will, but as thou wilt. In this submission he resigned himself, (1.) To be scourged: I gave my back to the smiters; and that not only by submitting to the indignity when he was smitten, but by permitting it (or admitting it rather) among the other instances of pain and shame which he would voluntarily undergo for us. (2.) To be buffeted: I gave my cheeks to those that not only smote them, but plucked off the hair of the beard, which was a greater degree both of pain and of ignominy. (3.) To be spit upon: I hid not my face from shame and spitting. He could have hidden his face from it, could have avoided it, but he would not, because he was made a reproach of men, and thus he would answer to the type of Job, that man of sorrows, of whom it is said that they smote him on the cheek reproachfully (Job 16:10), which was an expression not only of contempt, but of abhorrence and indignation. All this Christ underwent for us, and voluntarily, to convince us of his willingness to save us.
III. As a courageous champion, Isa 50:7-9. The Redeemer is as famous for his boldness as for his humility and patience, and, though he yields, yet he is more than a conqueror. Observe, 1. The dependence he has upon God. What was the prophet Isaiah's support was the support of Christ himself (v. 7): The Lord God will help me; and again, v. 9. Those whom God employs he will assist, and will take care they want not any help that they or their work call for. God, having laid help upon his Son for us, gave help to him, and his hand was all along with the man of his right hand. Nor will he only assist him in his work, but accept of him (v. 8): He is near that justifieth. Isaiah, no doubt, was falsely accused and loaded with reproach and calumny, as other prophets were; but he despised the reproach, knowing that God would roll it away and bring forth his righteousness as the light, perhaps in this world (Psa 37:6), at furthest in the great day, when there will be a resurrection of names as well as bodies, and the righteous shall shine forth as the morning sun. And so it was verified in Christ; by his resurrection he was proved to be not the man that he was represented, not a blasphemer, not a deceiver, not an enemy to Caesar. The judge that condemned him owned he found no fault in him; the centurion, or sheriff, that had charge of his execution, declared him a righteous man: so near was he that justified him. But it was true of him in a further and more peculiar sense: the Father justified him when he accepted the satisfaction he made for the sin of man, and constituted him the Lord our righteousness, who was made sin for us. He was justified in the Spirit, Ti1 3:16. He was near who did it; for his resurrection, by which he was justified, soon followed his condemnation and crucifixion. He was straightway glorified, Joh 13:32. 2. The confidence he thereupon has of success in his undertaking: "If God will help me, if he will justify me, will stand by me and bear me out, I shall not be confounded, as those are that come short of the end they aimed at and the satisfaction they promised themselves: I know that I shall not be ashamed." Though his enemies did all they could to put him to shame, yet he kept his ground, he kept his countenance, and was not ashamed of the work he had undertaken. Note, Work for God is work that we should not be ashamed of; and hope in God is hope that we shall not be ashamed of. Those that trust in God for help shall not be disappointed; they know whom they have trusted, and therefore know they shall not be ashamed. 3. The defiance which in this confidence he bids to all opposers and opposition: "God will help me, and therefore have I set my face like a flint." The prophet did so; he was bold in reproving sin, in warning sinners (Eze 3:8, Eze 3:9), and in asserting the truth of his predictions. Christ did so; he went on in his work, as Mediator, with unshaken constancy and undaunted resolution; he did not fail nor was discouraged; and here he challenges all his opposers, (1.) To enter the lists with him: Who will contend with me, either in law or by the sword? Let us stand together as combatants, or as the plaintiff and defendant. Who is my adversary? Who is the master of my cause? so the word is, "Who will pretend to enter an action against me? Let him appear, and come near to me, for I will not abscond." Many offered to dispute with Christ, but he put them to silence. The prophet speaks this in the name of all faithful ministers; those who keep close to the pure word of God, in delivering their message, need not fear contradiction; the scriptures will bear them out, whoever contends with them. Great is the truth and will prevail. Christ speaks this in the name of all believers, speaks it as their champion. Who dares be an enemy to those whom he is a friend to, or contend with those for whom he is an advocate? Thus St. Paul applies it (Rom 8:33): Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? (2.) He challenges them to prove any crime upon him (Isa 50:9): Who is he that shall condemn me? The prophet perhaps was condemned to die; Christ we are sure was; and yet both could say, Who is he that shall condemn? For there is no condemnation to those whom God justifies. There were those that did condemn them, but what became of them? They all shall wax old as a garment. The righteous cause of Christ and his prophets shall outlive all opposition. The moth shall eat them up silently and insensibly; a little thing will serve to destroy them. But the roaring lion himself shall not prevail against God's witnesses. All believers are enabled to make this challenge, Who is he that shall condemn? It is Christ that died.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv4–9 The Lord God hath given me the tongue of…
The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned,.... These are not the words of the prophet, as Aben Ezra, Kimchi, and others think; though what is here said is applicable to ministers of the word, who have to do with weary souls, and it is their work to comfort and refresh them; and which work requires knowledge and experience of their case, a good degree of elocution to speak aptly and with propriety, even to have the tongue of the learned, especially in a spiritual sense; as such have who have learned of the Father, and have been taught by the Spirit of God, and are well versed in the Scriptures, and can speak in the taught words of the Holy Ghost, comparing spiritual things with spiritual; and they have need of great prudence to time things right, to speak fitly and opportunely, and give to each their portion in due season, to whom they minister; and also great diligence and assiduity in prayer, reading, and meditation; and such as are teachers of others must be the Lord's hearers, and should be very diligent and attentive ones; all which are gifts from the Lord, and to be ascribed to him. But the words are to be understood of Christ, the same person that is speaking in the preceding verses; who being anointed by the Spirit of the Lord God, as man, whose gifts and graces he received without measure, he was abundantly qualified for the discharge of his prophetic office; and was capable of speaking as never man did, and with such power and authority as the Scribes and Pharisees did not, and with so much wisdom and eloquence as were surprising to all that heard him; he had the Spirit of wisdom on him, and the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hid in him:
that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary; not only saints, weary with sin, their own and others, and with troubles from the world, from Satan, and by afflictive providences; but sinners under first awakenings, distressed and uneasy in their minds at a sight of sin, in its exceeding sinfulness; pressed with the guilt of it, filled with a sense of divine wrath on account of it, and terrified with the thoughts of death, and a future judgment; and are weary with labouring for bread which satisfies not, for righteousness and life, and in seeking for resting places, being in want of spiritual rest, peace, and comfort; and who are hungry and thirsting after righteousness, after pardoning grace and mercy, after Christ and salvation by him, after his word and ordinances, after communion with him, and conformity to him; who are weak and without strength, and ready to faint for want of refreshment. The word for "weary" signifies "thirsty", according to Jarchi, Kimchi, and Ben Melech; who explain it of persons that thirst after hearing the word of the Lord: the Targum is,
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"to know how to teach the righteous that weary themselves at the words of the law;''
or, as some render it, that pant after the words of the law: but not the law, but the Gospel, is "the word in season", to be spoken to weary souls; which proclaims pardon, preaches peace, is the word of righteousness and salvation; which directs hungry and thirsty souls to Christ, as the bread and water of life, and invites weary ones to him for rest. That word of his, Mat 11:28 is a word in season to such persons: such a word Christ spoke when he was here on earth in his own person, and now speaks by his ministers in the preaching of the Gospel, and by his Spirit applying it to his people.
He wakeneth morning by morning; one after another continually, meaning himself; the allusion is to masters calling their scholars early to their studies; the morning being the fittest season for instruction and learning.
He wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned; who hear attentively, and with great pleasure and profit. This and the preceding clause seem to denote both the earliness in which Christ entered on his prophetic office, and his attentiveness in hearkening to all that was said in the eternal council and covenant by his divine Father; which he, as the Prophet of his church, makes known unto his people, Joh 15:15.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv4, 6, 8, 9 Given me - This and the following passages may…
Given me - This and the following passages may be in some sort understood of the prophet Isaiah, but they are far more evidently and eminently verified in Christ, and indeed seem to be meant directly of him. The tongue - All ability of speaking plainly, and convincingly, and persuasively. Weary - Burdened with the sense of his, deplorable condition. Wakeneth - Me, from time to time, and continually. To hear - He by his Divine power assists me to the practice of all his commands and my duties, with all attention and diligence.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv5–8 Verse 5. Neither turned away back - "Neither did…
Verse 5. Neither turned away back - "Neither did I withdraw myself backward"] Eleven MSS. and the oldest edition prefix the conjunction ו vau; and so also the Septuagint and Syriac.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv4, 5, 7 Isa 50:4. The Lord God hath given me, &c.…
Isa 50:4. The Lord God hath given me, &c. — The second discourse of the fifth part of Isaiah’s prophecies, according to Vitringa, begins here, and is continued to the seventeenth verse of the following chapter. God having, in the preceding paragraph, asserted his own power; to manifest the unreasonableness of the infidelity of the Jews, and that it was without all excuse, he proceeds to show what excellent and powerful means he used to bring them to repentance and salvation. This and the following passages may be, in some sort, understood of the Prophet Isaiah, but they are far more evidently and eminently verified in Christ, and indeed seem to be meant directly of him. To understand them in this light seems to suit best with the context, for, according to this exposition, the same person speaks here, who is the chief subject of the preceding chapter, and who has spoken in the foregoing verses of this chapter. There, indeed, he speaks as God, but here as man, being both God and man, as is abundantly evident from many passages, both of the Old and New Testaments. By the tongue of the learned is meant, an ability of speaking plainly, convincingly, persuasively, and in all points, so as becomes a person taught of God, and filled with all divine and heavenly wisdom and knowledge. That I should know how to speak, &c., to him that is weary — That is, burdened with the sense of his sin and misery, in which case a word of comfort is most seasonable and acceptable. This was the principal design of Christ’s ministry, namely, to give rest and comfort to the weary and heavy laden, according to what is said Mat 11:28. And all the doctrines, reproofs, and threatenings of Christ were directed to this end, to prepare men for receiving comfort and salvation. He wakeneth, namely, me, or mine ear, morning by morning — From time to time, and continually. He wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned — Either, first, as learned men, or teachers, use to awaken their scholars to hear and learn of them from time to time: or, rather, second, as those that are, or desire to be, learned, use to hear with all possible attention and diligence.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv4–9 The Lord God hath given me - This verse…
The Lord God hath given me - This verse commences a new subject, and the deliverer is directly introduced as himself speaking. The reasons why this is supposed to refer to the Messiah, have been given in the analysis to the chapter. Those reasons will be strengthened by the examination of the particular expressions in the passage, and by showing, as we proceed in the exposition, in what way they are applicable to him. It will be assumed that the reference is to the Messiah; and we shall find that it is a most beautiful description of his character, and of some of the principal events of his life. This verse is designed to state how he was suited for the special work to which he was called. The whole endowment is traced to Yahweh. It was he who had called him; he who had given him the tongue of the learned, and he who had carefully and attentively qualified him for his work.
The tongue of the learned - Hebrew, ‘The tongue of those who are instructed;’ that is, of the eloquent; or the tongue of instruction (παιδείας paideias, Septuagint); that is, he has qualified me to instruct others. It does not mean human science or learning; nor does it mean that any other had been qualified as he was, or that there were any others who were learned like him. But it means that on the subject of religion he was eminently endowed with intelligence, and with eloquence. In regard to the Redeemer’s power of instruction, the discourses which he delivered, as recorded in the New Testament, and especially his sermon on the mount, may be referred to. None on the subject of religion ever spake like him; none was ever so well qualified to instruct mankind (compare Mat 13:54).
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That I should know how to speak a word in season - The Hebrew here is, ‘That I might know how to strengthen with a word the weary;’ that is, that he might sustain, comfort, and refresh them by his promises and his counsels. How eminently he was suited to alleviate those who were heavy laden with sin and to comfort those who were burdened with calamities and trials, may be seen by the slightest reference to the New Testament, and the most partial acquaintance with his instructions and his life. The weary here are those who are burdened with a sense of guilt; who feel that they have no strength to bear up under the mighty load, and who therefore seek relief (see Mat 11:28).
He wakeneth morning by morning - That is, he wakens me every morning early. The language is taken from an instructor who awakens his pupils early, in order that they may receive instruction. The idea is, that the Redeemer would be eminently endowed, under the divine instruction and guidance, for his work. He would be one who was, so to speak, in the school of God; and who would be qualified to impart instruction to others.
He wakeneth mine ear - To awaken the ear is to prepare one to receive instruction. The expressions, to open the ear, to uncover the ear, to awaken the ear, often occur in the Scriptures, in the sense of preparing to receive instruction, or of disposing to receive divine communications. The sense here is plain. The Messiah would be taught of God, and would be inclined to receive all that he imparted.
To hear as the learned - Many translate the phrase here ‘as disciples,’ that is, as those who are learning. So Lowth; ‘With the attention of a learner.’ So Noyes; ‘In the manner of a disciple.’ The Septuagint renders it, ‘He has given me an ear to hear.’ The idea is, probably, that he was attentive as they are who wish to learn; that is, as docile disciples. The figure is taken from a master who in the morning summons his pupils around him, and imparts instruction to them. And the doctrine which is taught is, that the Messiah would be eminently qualified, by divine teaching, to be the instructor of mankind. The Chaldee paraphrases this, ‘Morning by morning, he anticipates (the dawn), that he may send his prophets, if perhaps they my open the ears of sinners, and receive instruction.’
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv4, 6, 7 Weary. Isaias speaks in the name of Christ, whose…
Weary. Isaias speaks in the name of Christ, whose words carried conviction and comfort along with them, John vi. 69., and vii. 46. (Calmet) --- Wakeneth. Literally, "lifteth up." Cynthius aurem---Vellit. ([Virgil?]Ec. vi.) --- Hear, or obey. (Haydock) --- Christ preached more powerfully than Isaias, and continues to do so by his pastors. (St. Jerome) (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv4–9 Messiah, as "the servant of Jehovah" (Isa 42:1), declares…
Messiah, as "the servant of Jehovah" (Isa 42:1), declares that the office has been assigned to Him of encouraging the "weary" exiles of Israel by "words in season" suited to their case; and that, whatever suffering it is to cost Himself, He does not shrink from it (Isa 50:5-6), for that He knows His cause will triumph at last (Isa 50:7-8).
learned--not in mere human learning, but in divinely taught modes of instruction and eloquence (Isa 49:2; Exo 4:11; Mat 7:28-29; Mat 13:54).
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speak a word in season-- (Pro 15:23; Pro 25:11). Literally, "to succor by words," namely, in their season of need, the "weary" dispersed ones of Israel (Deu 28:65-67). Also, the spiritual "weary" (Isa 42:3; Mat 11:28).
wakeneth morning by morning, &c.--Compare "daily rising up early" (Jer 7:25; Mar 1:35). The image is drawn from a master wakening his pupils early for instruction.
wakeneth . . . ear--prepares me for receiving His divine instructions.
as the learned--as one taught by Him. He "learned obedience," experimentally, "by the things which He suffered"; thus gaining that practical learning which adapted Him for "speaking a word in season" to suffering men (Heb 5:8).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv4, 6, 7 4. This discourse is to his people yet in…
4. This discourse is to his people yet in exile; but equally well it applies to them when he, as Messiah, finds them at his incarnation in Judea, centuries after their restoration to Jerusalem.
The Lord God — He from whom goes forth the Messiah, and he in whom Jehovah came to his nation, a twofold mysterious relation, or interaction, of God and his Anointed One. The one speaking here, as is also shown by the words me and mine, may be assumed to be the Messiah, who is referring in these verses to facts pertaining especially to the incarnate period on earth, and generally to the ante-incarnate period during the later history of Israel. Isa_42:2; Isa_49:1.
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The tongue of the learned — One eloquent in what he knows, or in those things in which he has been instructed.
Word in season — Words of consolation and hope to the sorrowful and afflicted.
He wakeneth morning by morning — Jehovah continually reveals to his Anointed what truths he should speak or reveal. Messiah is a learner, not in the way prophets become such — by dreams in the night and other ways — but through closest oneness of nature, and in normal face-to-face communications.
He wakeneth mine ear — Calleth for my mental attention, which is instantly given. This describes the way of Christ on earth perfectly.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv4–9 4, 5. The relation of the Servant to Jehovah…
4, 5. The relation of the Servant to Jehovah is that of a favourite disciple to his master; from Him he had learned the art of persuasive and consoling speech, and to Him he daily looks for the substance of his message. Comp. Isa_49:2 (the Servant’s endowment with prophetic eloquence), and Isa_42:3 (the gentleness of his ministry).
the tongue of the learned] a disciples’ tongue (see ch. Isa_8:16), i.e. a disciplined tongue (R.V. “of them that are taught”). The stress laid on the Divine education of the Servant is connected with the fact that his ministry of consolation was almost a new departure in prophecy. In the hands of the earlier prophets the word of Jehovah had been like a hammer breaking the rock in pieces (Jer_23:29) rather than a dew reviving the spirit of the humble.
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that I should know … weary] A difficult clause. The verb rendered “speak in season” (‘ûth) is unknown in Hebrew. The A.V., following the Jewish interpreters, takes it to be a denominative from the word for “time” (‘çth), but that is an impossible etymology. The LXX. gives a similar sense (τοῦ γνῶναι ἡνίκα δεῖ εἰπεῖν λόγον) but based on a different text. Of the traditional interpretations the most suitable is perhaps that of the Vulg. and Aquila (which is followed by the R.V.): that I should know how to sustain the weary with a word. Modern authorities who adopt this rendering support it by an Arabic verb meaning “to help,” which however is not an exact philological equivalent. Another Arabic analogy has suggested the translation “water” (i.e. “refresh”). It is impossible to get beyond conjecture, although the general sense is clear.
he wakeneth (sc. my ear) morning by morning] (cf. Isa_28:19). A far simpler sentence results if we omit with Cheyne the first word of the Heb. (or with Duhm the first two words) as an uncorrected slip of a copyist, reading the adverbial expression with the following verb; thus: “morning by morning (or “in the morning”) he wakeneth my ear to hear” &c.
as the learned] after the manner of disciples.
Ch. Isa_50:4-11. The Lord’s Servant made perfect through Sufferings
In Isa_50:4-9 the Servant is again introduced, speaking of himself and his work, as in Isa_49:1-6. He describes in the first place the close and intimate and continuous communion with God through which he has learned the ministry of comfort by the Divine word, and his own complete self-surrender to the voice that guides him (Isa_50:4-5); next, his acceptance of the persecution and obloquy which he had to encounter in the discharge of his commission (6); and lastly he expresses his unwavering confidence in the help of Jehovah and the victory of his righteous cause and the discomfiture of all his enemies (7–9).
Isa_50:10-11 are an appendix to the preceding description, drawing lessons for the encouragement of believers (Isa_50:10) and the warning of unbelievers (Isa_50:11). They contain expressions and even thoughts which are unlike those of the second Isaiah; and are possibly (with Duhm and Cheyne) to be regarded as a later insertion in the prophecy.
Although the word “Servant” never occurs in this passage, its resemblance to the three other “servant-passages” makes it certain that the speaker is none other than the ideal character who comes before us in Isa_42:1-4, Isa_49:1-6, and Isa 52:13–53:15. The passage, indeed, forms an almost indispensable link of connexion between the first two and the last of these. Whilst it takes up and developes certain ideas thrown out in the earlier sections, and in its dramatic form most resembles the second of them, its closest affinities are with Isa_52:13 ff. Common to both is the new conception of the Servant as a sufferer, here at the hands of men, there at the hands of men and God alike. In the present passage we have the Servant’s own consciousness with regard to his sufferings, these being regarded from an ethical point of view as brought on him by fidelity to his Divine mission. In ch. Isa_52:13 ff. it is the religious aspect of them that is mainly dwelt upon: their value in the sight of God, and their efficacy for the salvation of men.—The view, therefore, that the prophet here speaks in his own name cannot be maintained, although it is no doubt the one that would be most readily suggested if the verses stood alone. So also the further question whether the Servant be the ideal Israel must be considered with due regard to the other places where the same idea is presented (see Appendix, Note I). Here it is only necessary to observe that the conception cannot in any case be applied to Israel as a whole and its sufferings from other nations. We have seen from ch. Isa_49:6-7 that the Servant has two spheres of activity, one within Israel, and the other directed to the world at large; and there can be no reasonable doubt that the persecutions referred to belong to the narrower sphere, representing the experience of the godly minority in whom the true ideal of Israel was partly realised, in conflict with their unregenerate fellow-countrymen.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv4, 5, 7, 8, 9 (4) The Lord God . . .—A new section…
(4) The Lord God . . .—A new section begins in the form of an abruptly introduced soliloquy. As in Isa_49:4, the speaker is the Servant of Jehovah, not Isaiah, though we may legitimately trace in what follows some echoes of the prophet’s own experience. The union of the two names Adonai Jahveh (or Jehovah) indicates, as elsewhere, a special solemnity.
The tongue of the learned.—Better, of a disciple, or, well-trained scholar.
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That I should know how to speak.—Better, that I should know how to sustain (or, refresh) the weary with a word.
He wakeneth.—The daily teaching of the morning communion with God is contrasted by implication with the dreams and night visions of a less perfect inspiration. An illustration, perhaps a conscious fulfilment, may be found in Mar_1:35; Luk_4:42.
To hear as the learned.—Read disciples, as before. The true Servant is also as a scholar, studious of the Master’s will, as are other scholars.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv4–8 Vers. 4-9. A SOLILOQUY OF THE SERVANT OF JEHOVAH.…
Vers. 4-9. A SOLILOQUY OF THE SERVANT OF JEHOVAH. The separateness of this passage has been maintained in the opening paragraph. That it is not of himself that the prophet here speaks, appears
(1) from the self-assertion (vers, 4, 5, 9);
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(2) from the depth of humiliation declared in ver. 6, which is beyond anything recorded of Isaiah. But if he does not speak of himself, he can scarcely speak of any other besides "the Servant," of whom he has already said much, (Isa_42:1-8 Isa_49:1-12) and of whom he has still much more to say. (Isa_52:13-15 Isa_53:1-12)
Ver. 4. The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned; literally, the tongue of disciples; i.e. a trained tongue, a well-taught tongue. Christ "did nothing of himself; as the Father had taught him," so he. (Joh_8:28) That I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary; rather, that I shall know how to sustain by a word him that is weary. Compare, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest". (Mat_11:28) He wakeneth morning by morning... mine ear. God held immediate and constant communication with the "Servant not enlightening him occasionally, as he did the prophets, by dreams and visions, but continually whispering in his ear. At no time did the Father "leave him alone" (Joh_8:29) or cease to speak to him. "Morning by morning" is not to be narrowed to the bare literal meaning, but to be taken in the sense of "uninterruptedly." To hear as the learned; rather, to hear as disciples hear; i.e. attentively, submissively, gladly.
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON Vers. 4-9. Jehovah and his Servant.
The passage is to be compared with Isa_42:1-4 Isa_49:1-9. The manner in which God is referred to is peculiarly solemn by his double name, the Lord Jehovah.
I THE SERVANT"S ENDOWMENTS AND TEMPER. The tongue of disciples. The "facility of well-trained scholars" (Isa_8:6 Isa_54:13) discipled tongue, speaking nothing but what it has learned from God." A tongue the object of which is comfort to the weary. Not to astonish, dazzle, bewilder, but to edify and console. "The wisdom of Heaven does not bespeak man in an unknown tongue; nor design, what would be more miraculous than all miracles, that men should be saved by what they could not understand." But true eloquence implies the faculty of listening. "The things we have heard declare we unto you." They are things imparted to the wakened soul, in the clear conscious hours of calm contemplation, and in the mood of devout sympathy. "The Servant was not a mechanical organ of revelation, but had a spiritual sympathy with it, even when it told of suffering for himself. It is not that bare assent to the truth which is seldom followed by spiritual effects. Nothing is more common than to see men of rare knowledge and raised speculations in the things of God, who have no relish and savour of them in their hearts and affections. Their practice bids defiance to their knowledge. They never know God so as to obey him, and therefore never know him at all. To hear the Word of God, and to hear God speaking in his Word, are things vastly different" (South). Now, Jehovah had opened an ear to his Servant; and he "had not been defiant, had not turned back." All our duties as servants of God resolve themselves into faith, obedience, and patience; and the vital principle of all is submission. Faith, the submission of the understanding; obedience, the submission of the will to what God bids us to do; and patience, submission to what God bids us suffer. In contrast to this temper Jonah may be cited; and in exemplification of it, Jeremiah. (Jer_17:6 Jer_20:7) in such a temper humiliation and scorn may be patiently endured.
II THE DIVINE PRESENCE AND HELP. "Against the crowd of mockers he places the Lord Jehovah." Jehovah is on his side; and therefore he can (in a good sense) harden his face like a flint against his foes, be confident, and not be disappointed. A good conscience is a tower of strength. "Near is he that justifieth me." "To justify," in the Old Testament, almost always means to pronounce a man righteous, or prove him so in act. The Servant is thinking of a trial through which he is passing, and where God is the Judge. But "while Job shrinks in terror from the issue, the Servant has no doubt as to a favourable result." The passage is full of a holy and strong confidence, in the strength of which he can face all his foes. Only he who has not defied God (ver. 5) is able to defy the world, and speak of his enemies as falling to pieces like a rotten, moth-eaten garment. And thus from personal experience he is able to comfort and to exhort others. "He that walketh in darkness and hath no light, let him trust in the Name of Jehovah, and rely upon his God." The opposition is between outward darkness and inward light in the man"s own "clear breast," where he "may sit in the centre, and enjoy clear day." To have a conscience defiled and obscured is to be left, in the time of adversity, "wholly in the dark." The man cannot tell whether God is his enemy or his friend; or rather, has cause to suspect him of being his enemy. Then, "if we would have our conscience deal clearly with us, we must deal severely with it. Often scouring and cleansing it will make it bright." We learn from the passage how the habit of submission to the Spirit of God, and hearty obedience to his will, tends to promote a reasonable confidence in every hour of trial. Not, indeed, one that is secure against all vicissitudes of wavering and distrust, any more than a strong physical constitution can be exempt from occasional attacks of disease. But in the will absolutely submitted to the Divine, vigorously exerted in the cause of right, may be found a confidence short, indeed, of perfect assurance, yet "for the purposes of a pious life much more useful. J.
The hearing ear and the helpful tongue.
The whole passage (vers. 4-9) is strikingly appropriate to the spirit and the work of the Messiah; and this verse as much as the rest. For it was true in no small measure:
1. That Jesus received continual communications from the Divine Father. "The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise". (Joh_5:19; see also Joh_3:11 Joh_5:30 Joh_8:28, Joh_8:40)
2. That he spoke many words of cheer and succour. (Mat_11:28 Joh_14:1-4, Joh_14:16-18, Joh_14:27, etc.) Many and manifold were "the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth." But we will take the text as applicable to the faithful servant of Christ now more particularly to him who is the minister of Christ. And thus regarded, we infer
I THAT WE SHOULD HAVE AN OPEN EAR TO WELCOME ALL THE TRUTH GOD HAS TO TEACH US. Between the man who knows enough to find admission into the kingdom of Christ and the man who has been best instructed in that kingdom, there is a very great difference, a very large distance. We stand somewhere along this line. But where? Near the starting-point or near the goal? It is a question of grave consequence. Not only because it is most desirable for our own sake that we should reach the highest attainable point of heavenly wisdom; but also, and principally, because the extent of our knowledge of God and of his truth is the measure of our power to influence and bless our fellow-men. A man who is learning daily of God is a man who is daily gaining power to teach and help his brethren. Therefore have the ear to hear, the mind to understand, the spirit of reverent, earnest docility. Learn of the written Word, of the human ministry, of Divine providence, of the discipline of life. Morning by morning be receptive of the truth which the Father is desirous of teaching; let no day pass on which something more of holy wisdom is not treasured in the mind, is not hidden in the heart.
II THAT WE SHOULD STUDY TO BE HELPFUL IN OUR SPEECH. Some men speak as often to wound as they do to heal, to disturb and distress as to comfort and to cheer. Immeasurable is the opportunity we possess in the way of rendering help by simple but kindly speech. Not by a few elaborate endeavours, but by a multitude of friendly utterances, unchronicled and unconsidered, do we benefit and even bless our kind. To comfort the sad, to cheer the weary on their hard way, to guide the perplexed, to help the wavering to a wise decision, to strengthen those who are ready to faint in some field of holy usefulness, to whisper Christian hope in dying ears, this may satisfy the ambition of the good and wise. C.
Words in season.
The ability to speak suitable words, timely, wise, and helpful, is God"s gift, and one of his best gifts, which we should covet earnestly. "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in baskets of silver". (Pro_25:11) We are often pleasantly, and often sadly, reminded how words which we spoke years ago lie in the memories of those who heard, and have exerted continuous influence for weal or woe. And there are few of us who look back over life without regret that golden opportunities for speaking helpful words were missed. "What awakened you? " said a Christian minister on one occasion to a young friend. "It was what you said to me one evening coming out of the lecture-room. As you took me by the hand, you said, "Mary, one thing is needful" You said nothing else, and passed on; but I could not forget it." It was a word spoken in the Spirit, and the Lord accompanied it with saving power. The words commended by the prophet are more especially those spoken to the weary; but Scripture connects a very wide meaning with that term. It includes
(1) him that is weary with the overtoil of life;
(2) him that is weary of the commonness and comparative meanness of labour;
(3) him that is weary through the perplexities and difficulties of life;
(4) him that is weary through prolonged bearing of pain;
(5) him that is weary in well-doing; and
(6) him that is weary of the strife with sin.
"Lost for want of a word A word that you might have spoken! Who knows what eyes may be dim, Or what hearts may be aching and broken?
Words in season may be
I WORDS OF CHEER. Brightly toned. Full of hope. The words of those who can see the "bright side of the shield," and find a smile resting like soft sunlight on everything. In our "bearing" and our "doing" we feel thankful to all who can speak cheerily to us.
II WORDS OF WARNING. Spoken by the far-sighted men, who can see the issues of our conduct, to which we are blind.
III WORDS OF COUNSEL. Wise; prudent. The issue of large knowledge; quick observation; varied experience; established character.
IV WORDS OF REPROOF. Brave words, that show us our faults. "Faithful are the wounds of a friend.
V WORDS OF COMFORT. The human agency through which God gives us the resting of his "everlasting arms." Words are "out of season" when they are
(1) unadapted;
(2) untimely.
They are always out of season when they find expression for pride of self rather than for care of others. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv4, 6, 7, 8 The Lord God hath given Me the tongue of…
Isa_50:4-11
The Lord God hath given Me the tongue of the learned
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The Lords servant made perfect through sufferings
In Isa_50:4-9 the servant is again introduced, speaking of Himself and His work, as in Isa_49:1-6.
He describes--
1. The close, intimate, and continuous communion with God through which He has learned the ministry of comfort by the Divine word, and His own complete self-surrender to the voice that guides Him (Isa_49:4-5).
2. His acceptance of the persecution and obloquy which He had to encounter in the discharge of His commission (Isa_49:6).
3. His unwavering confidence in the help of Jehovah, and the victory of His righteous cause, and the discomfiture of all His enemies (Isa_49:7-9). Verses 10, 11 are an appendix to the preceding description, drawing lessons for the encouragement of believers (Isa_49:10) or the warning of unbelievers (Isa_49:11). Although the word Servant never occurs in this passage, its resemblance to the three other Servant-passages makes it certain that the speaker is none other than the ideal character who comes before us in Isa_42:1-4; Isa_49:1-6; Isa_52:13-15; Isa_53:1-12. The passage, indeed, forms analmost indispensable link of connection between the first two and the last of these. (Prof. J. Skinner, D.D.)
The Messiah an instructed Teacher
After the Messiah had been exhibited in the preceding discourse labouring in vain and spending His strength for nought among the Jews, despised of men and abhorred by the nations, when actually employed in His public ministry, it became necessary to explain this surprising phenomenon. It is, therefore, affirmed that the neglect and contempt which He suffered was not owing to any deficiency on the part of this celebrated Teacher, who was eminently qualified for acquainting men with the Will of God, in the knowledge of which He was perfectly instructed. This important qualification was not imparted to Him by any human teacher, neither did He acquire it in the schools of philosophers and orators, nor was it communicated to Him by the most eminent of the prophets, but by the Spirit of the Lord God, to whom it is here attributed. (R. Macculloch.)
The tongue of the learned
I. THE CHARACTER DESCRIBED AS NEEDING THE SAVIOURS GRACE. Him that is weary. This description includes a very large class. All may not ascribe their weariness to the same cause, nor may all be sensible of their weariness to the same extent. Yet all are weary.
1. Not in the world of sense only do you complain of weariness. It is impossible for the unrenewed heart to find rest even in things that are Spiritual. Heaven itself would to such a one cease to be heaven. What a weariness do you find in the religion of Jesus Christ! Of prayer, of public worship, of hearing sermons, of religious conversation, of the service and work of the Lord you say, What a weariness!
2. The description, certainly, includes those who are truly anxious about the salvation of their souls.
3. The Lords weary ones include His own quickened people, who feel the burden of the body of sin, and are cast down because of their difficulties.
4. The assaults of the adversary, too, contribute not a little to the sense of weariness, which often prostrate a child of God.
5. Add to these the numerous and varied trials and afflictions which beset his pathway to heaven, and you have in outline the picture of his case.
II. CHRISTS QUALIFICATIONS TO MEET THE CASE OF SUCH.
1. His participation of our nature. Absolute Godhead could not of itself have conveyed to us sinners one word of sympathy or comfort. Neither could the angels do it. They are total strangers to the weariness to which sinful children of men are heirs. But, the man Christ Jesus becomes a partaker of the very nature whose burdens He sought to relieve. Forasmuch as the children were partakers of flesh and blood, He also took part in the same.
2. As He thus took upon Him our nature, so He also endured our sinless though humbling infirmities.
3. In addition to all this, the Lord God had given Him the tongue of the learned in another sense. I refer to the communication of the Divine Spirit Isa_61:1). Never was there a tongue like Christs--so learned, soskilled, so practised, and so experienced. Never man spake like this man.
4. The purpose for which this tongue of the learned was given Him is thus described--That He should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary.
(1) A word,
(2) a word in season,
(3) that He should know how to speak.
5. But when Christ speaks to the weary, it is not to the outward ear merely, but to the heart--with almighty power. And the result is rest.
III. THE REST WHICH JESUS IMPARTS, when He speaks the word in season.
1. We are seeking rest by nature everywhere, and in everything but in Jesus. We seek it in the outward world, in the moral world, in the religious world--and we find it not. We seek it in conviction, in ordinances, in doing the works of the law--and still it evades us. We go from place to place, and from means to means, and still the burden presses, and we find no rest. No, and never will, until it is sought and found in Jesus.
2. Yet, in the case of a tried believer, the rest that Jesus imparts does not always imply the removal of the burden from which the sense of weariness proceeds. The burden is permitted to remain, and yet rest is experienced. Wonderful indeed! How is it explained? That burden takes us to Jesus. He pours strength into our souls, life into our spirits, and love into our hearts, and so we find rest. It is also matter of much practical importance, that you take heed not to anticipate or forestall His promised grace. For every possible emergency in which you can be placed, the fulness of Christ and the supplies of the Covenant are provided. But that provision is only meted out as the necessity for which it was intended occurs.
3. There is an hour approaching--the last great crisis of human life--when, we shall all, more than ever, need Him who hath the tongue of the learned. It will be of all seasons the most trying and solemn--the season that separates the soul from the body, and ushers the immortal spirit into eternity. Is it not our highest wisdom to know this Saviour now? (C. Ross M. A.)
A word to the weary
I. THE POWER OF SPEAKING TO THE WEARY IS NOTHING LESS THAN A DIVINE GIFT. We may say the right word in a wrong tone.
II. Though the gift itself is Divine, IT IS TO BE EXERCISED SEASONABLY. It is not enough to speak the right word, it must be spoken at the right moment. (J. Parker, D.D.)
Christ speaking a word in season to the weary
I. CONSIDER THE STATE AND CHARACTER OF THOSE THAT ARE WEARY.
II. SHOW, FROM THE CHARACTER AND PERSON OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, THAT HE IS A SEASONABLE AND ALL-SUFFICIENT SAVIOUR TO THOSE WHO ARE WEARY. The excellency and glory of Christ may not only be perceived by viewing Him in the whole of His mediatorial character; but, also, by fixing on specific parts of it, and showing that there is a Divine suitability to all the exigencies of ruined men.
1. He can give rest to the mind of the man who is wearied with his researches after human wisdom.
2. He can give rest to those who are oppressed under a sense of guilt.
3. He can speak a word in season to those who have wearied themselves in attempting to establish their own righteousness.
4. He can give rest to those who have wearied themselves in vainly trying to overcome their corruptions in their own strength.
5. He can speak a word in season to those who are weary with the weight of affliction and trouble.
6. He can give rest to those who are oppressed and wearied with the cares of this world.
7. Christ can speak a word in season to those who are weary of living in this world. None of the children of men can enjoy rest, or real peace of mind, but through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. (J. Matheson.)
The ministry of preaching
(with Act_20:27). The first passage is spoken by the Messiah, the second by St. Paul. The one looks forward, the other backward. The one speaks of a preparation and fitness for a work yet to be done; the other is a thankful record of a mission already faithfully accomplished.
I. IN THE FIRST PASSAGE YOU HAVE THE CHIEF MINISTER OF THE CHURCH ANTICIPATING HIS WORK OF TEACHING AND ANNOUNCING HIS FITNESS FOR THE WORK.
1. Observe the gift with which He claims to be endowed as one element of special fitness for His ministry. Speech was the chief instrument employed by Christ for conveying truth to the minds of men. The dispensation under which we live, so emphatically designated the dispensation of the Spirit, was ushered in by two miracles, both of which related to the tongue The Holy Spirit Himself appeared resting upon each one in the form of cloven tongues as of fire. A second miracle was wrought on the uneducated Galilean apostles, enabling them, without learning, to speak intelligently in the dialects of all the nationalities present, so that every man heard them speak in his own language. And why, at the very founding of Christianity, was this twofold miracle wrought in relation to the tongue, if not to indicate that the Holy Spirit purposed to employ speech as the chief instrument in the regeneration of mankind?
2. The purpose for which this gift of speech is to be employed. To speak a word in season to him that is weary.
(1) You will have to speak to men suffering, from mental weariness--men who have long searched for truth and failed to find it. See that ye be well furnished with the Spirit, who has promised to guide you into all truth, and who also will help you to guide others into all truth.
(2) You will have others wearied in body, through excessive labour or sore affliction. You may tell them of the illustrious Sufferer of Calvary who, though innocent, suffered for our sins; was in all points tempted like as we are; and who, therefore, is able to succour all those who are tempted.
(3) You will have others wearied in heart, by reason of bereavement. Imitating the Great Teacher in the bereaved family of Bethany, you must direct the thought of the sorrowful to the resurrection power of Christ, when the mortal shall put on immortality, and the corruptible shall put on incorruption.
(4) Others will come to you weary of the vicissitudes, disappointments and reverses of life. With the Master, you may speak to them of the lily, the sparrow, the grass, the flower of the field; how your Heavenly Father careth for these, but how much more He will care for those who have faith in and love towards Him, even to the numbering of every hair on the whitening brow.
(5) Others will come with weary consciences, burdened with sin, fearing the wrath to come, carrying with them, it may be, the dread secret of undiscovered and unconfessed crime. Take solemn heed that the word you speak is a word in season. Do not heal lightly the wounds thus made by the Spirit. Do not attempt to soothe the agony by minifying the guilt, or lessening the condemnation, or diminishing the penalty. Do what the Spirit does. Take of the things of Christ and show them unto the penitent; show them in their preciousness, their efficacy, and their all-sufficiency.
(6) Others may come to you weary of inbred sin. Open your ear to hear what the Lord your God will say unto you; humbly wait with an upward look to your Great Teacher, and He will give you the tongue of the learned.
3. This learning claimed by the Redeemer is set forth as progressive. He wakeneth Me morning by morning. He wakeneth mine ear that I may hear as disciples do. If our Lord found it necessary to place Himself in the position of a pupil to receive daily instruction from the Divine Father, how much greater need is there for you who are His ministers? You cannot learn in one lesson all that the Holy Spirit has to communicate. Cultivate a sensibility of soul, a readiness to hear the softest, gentlest tone of God, whether in nature, in providence, in history, in the inspired word, or in the deep secrets of your own heart.
II. THE NOBLE TESTIMONY OF THE NOBLEST APOSTLE AT THE CLOSE OF HIS MINISTRY AT EPHESUS. (R..Roberts.)
The weary world and the refreshing ministry
I. THE WEARY WORLD. It is not one man that is weary, the generation is weary, the world is weary. All sinners are weary. Wearied with fruitless efforts after happiness. There is the ennui yawn, and the groan of depression heard everywhere.
II. THE REFRESHING MINISTRY. The Lord God hath given me, etc.
1. The relief comes by speech. No physical, legislative, or ceremonial means will do; it must be by the living voice, charged with sympathy, truth, light.
2. The effective speech comes from God. The Lord God hath given Me the tongue of the learned. No man can speak the soul-refreshing thing unless God inspires and teaches him.
3. The speech that comes from God is a word in season. It is exactly suited to the mood of the souls addressed. (Homilist.)
A word in season to the weary
(with Mat_11:28-30):--
I. We may name WOUNDED AFFECTIONS as a very frequent cause of weariness. We do not know, until the blow comes, how heavily we have been leaning on the staff of friendly sympathy. Breaking beneath our weight, it leaves us tottering and weary. But amidst all our heart-troubles the voice of the Saviour is heard saying, Rest! Come unto Me and I will give you rest.
II. THE DISAPPOINTMENT OF OUR DESIRES is another common antecedent of lassitude. All of us are furnished with larger appetites than we have ability or opportunity for satisfying. Pleasure! Money! Power! Reputation! How seldom do men know when they have enough of that which they most desire. So, as the material of sensuous enjoyment becomes exhausted, the sense of emptiness becomes more painful. But in this mood, too, we are met by the Divine Saviour: Come unto Me, and I will give you rest. For Christ would fill the soul with the only object of desire that cannot disappear in its grasp: with the Eternal Himself.
III. VACANCY OF MIND AND THE SENSE OF MONOTONY is another common cause of weariness. Nature abhors a vacuum, as the old philosophers said. The mind cannot endure its own emptiness. It is so constituted that it must have change and variety of impressions and ideas; otherwise it turns upon itself, and its fine mechanism is worn down with useless friction. But He who comes to reveal the Father meets us, too, in this mood of self-weariness. It is His message to tell us of a new self which it is the will of God to impart to us; a new heart in which it may please God to dwell, and with which He can hold fellowship. The man who yields himself to the Spirit, and is born of the Spirit, need no longer be disgusted with himself, having found his nature anew in God.
IV. But the load of A GUILTY CONSCIENCE is even more fatiguing than that of a vacant mind. Need it be pointed out how profoundly Christ meets this guilty dejection of the human heart?
V. Quite a different cause of weariness is to be found in THE BURDEN OF EARNEST THOUGHT AND NOBLE ENDEAVOUR. For the Christian, it is enough that his Saviour has suffered in the flesh--has borne the weary weight of all this unintelligible world in uncomplaining meekness. He is to arm himself likewise with the same mind. (E. Johnson, M.A.)
Noble gifts for lowly uses
I. GODS HIGHEST GIFTS HAVE THEIR DEFINITE END AND PURPOSE. In Nature, for instance, nothing has been created in vain. And so it ought to be in human life, that world of feeling and desire within the breast of man. You see that the prophet looked upon the tongue of the learned as a gift from God, holding it in trust, where many would have counted it as their own. And he saw it was a gift for very plain and apparent purposes--for men are stewards, and not owners of all that is bestowed upon them. This splendid administrative genius of the Anglo-Saxon race, dominant and even imperious, but only because it has seen into the heart of purposes working themselves out in the midst of the ages, the wealth it has acquired, the influence it commands, has this no meaning in the economy of nations? You only need the touch of Christ to consecrate it and turn it into right channels, and the whole world is blessed thereby. We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak.
II. THIS DEFINITE PURPOSE IS A VERY SIMPLE ONE, AND POSSIBLY AT FIRST SIGHT INSUFFICIENT. Ambition would say so, and ambition is as natural to the human heart as desire itself. We ask great things, we would be great things, we would do them. It must be confessed, however, that no sin of man has been more constant and apparent than that which has made men look down upon these lowly uses belonging unto lofty gifts. A proud reserve has been considered in all ages as appropriate to commanding talents. The statesmans wisdom, the orators art, the poets fire, what are they side by side with all that wondrous wealth lavished upon simple fishermen in Galilee, and carried into the home of Lazarus, and spent among the humble poor. Between the highest born among men and the humblest service henceforward there can be no disparity. If I, then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, He said to His disciples, ye ought also to wash one anothers feet. And as with individuals, so with nations. God gives special gifts for His own purposes.
III. THIS PURPOSE IS A VERY URGENT AND APPROPRIATE ONE. After all, the end is not beneath the means. It needs the tongue of the learned to speak a word in season to him that is weary, that word fitly spoken which dries the tear from the eye, and banishes sorrow from the heart. To do away with pain and assuage grief, is not that a noble, a Divine thing? And will you see how Christianity has been doing this in lower and yet very important directions, permeating society by its subtle influences for good? And more when you understand Isaiahs words in their true and spiritual significance, what a field of usefulness unfolds itself! For the great burdens of mankind are not physical, but mental and spiritual. (W. Baxendale.)
Words in season for the weary
I. THE EDUCATION OF THE DIVINE SERVANT. We must notice the difference between the authorized version and the new. In the one, the Lord God hath given Me the tongue of the learned, that I should know. In the other, of them that are taught--or, as the margin reads, of disciples. The thought being that the Lord Jesus in His human life was a pupil in the school of human pain, under the tutelage of His Father.
1. His education was by God Himself.
2. It was various. He passed through each class in the school of weariness.
3. It was constant. Morning by morning the Father woke Him.
4. It dealt with the season for administering comfort. That I should know how to speak a word in season. There are times when the nervous system is so overstrained that it cannot bear even the softest words. It is best then to be silent. A caress, a touch, or the stillness that breathes an atmosphere of calm, will then most quickly soothe and heal. This delicacy of perception can only be acquired in the school of suffering.
5. It embraced the method. That I should know how. The manner is as important as the season. A message of good-will may be uttered with so little sympathy, and in tones so gruff and grating, that it will repel. The touch of the comforter must be that of the nurse on the fractured bone--of the mother with the frightened child.
II. HIS RESOLUTION. From the first, Jesus knew that He must die. The Lord God poured the full story into His opened ear. With all other men, death is the close of their life; with Christ it was the object. We die because we were born; Christ was born that He might die. On one occasion, towards the close of His earthly career, when the fingers on the dial-plate were pointing to the near fulfilment of the time, we are told He set His face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem. What heroism was here! Men sometimes speak of Christ as if He were effeminate and weak, remarkable only for passive virtues. But such conceptions are refuted by the indomitable resolution which set its face like a flint, and knew that it would not be ashamed. Note the voluntariness of Christs surrender. The martyr dies because he cannot help it; Christ dies because He chose. It has been thought that the opened ear refers to something more than the pushing back of the flowing Oriental locks in order to utter the secret of coming sorrow. It is supposed to have some reference to the ancient Jewish custom of boring the ear of the slave to the doorpost of the masters house. Under this metaphor it is held that our Lord chose with keen sympathy the service of the Father, and elected all that it might involve, because He loved Him and would not go out free. The images may be combined. Be it only remembered that He knew and chose all that would come upon Him, and that the fetters which bound Him to the Cross were those of undying love to us and of burning passion for the Fathers glory.
III. HIS VINDICATION. He is near that justifieth Me. These are words upon which Jesus may have stayed Himself through those long hours of trial. They said that He was the Friend of publicans and sinners. God has justified Him by showing that if He associates with such, it is to make them martyrs and saints. They said that He was mad. God has justified Him by making His teaching the illumination of the noblest and wisest of the race. They said He had a devil. God has justified Him by giving Him power to cast out the devil and hind him with a mighty chain. They said that He blasphemed when He called Himself the Son of God. God has justified Him by raising Him to the right hand of power, so that He will come in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. They said that He would destroy the temple and the commonwealth of Israel. God has justified Him in shedding the influence of the Hebrew people through all the nations of the world, and making their literature, their history, their conceptions dominant.
IV. HIS APPEAL (verse 16). To obey the Lords servant is equivalent to fearing the Lord. He who does the one must do the other. What is this but to proclaim His Deity? (F. B. Meyer, B.A.)
A word in season to him that is weary
A word to the weary
To speak a word is easy, to speak a word in season is difficult; but to speak a word in season to him that is weary is more difficult still; and yet to be able to accomplish this end wisely and successfully is to be one of the greatest benefactors to our race. (E. Mellor, D. D.)
Weariness
Weariness the word reveals its parentage clearly enough. To be weary is to be worn--or worn out--or worn down. One wears his coat until it is worn out; and so you wear your strength until it is worn out, There is a weariness also which is not the result of excessive toil, but of indolence. For no man sighs so much, complains so much, fears so much, as the man who sets himself the task of passing through life doing nothing. Sometimes weariness is a virtue; sometimes it is a sin. But whether it be virtue or sin, there is no man who does not know well what it is to be weary. (E. Mellor, D. D.)
Words to the weary
We have many doors in our nature, and at every one of these weariness may enter.
I. There is--to begin at the lowest door of all--the physical one, THE WEARINESS WHICH COMES TO US FROM BODILY TOIL, or from toil which, whether bodily or not, tells upon the body by wasting for the time its energies. So far as such toil is rendered necessary by the very fundamental conditions of our existence, the weariness which ensues upon it is a Divine appointment, and the most benign provision has been made for meeting and banishing it. You need no word in season for such weariness as this. There is something better than a word for you. There is night with its soothing darkness. There is your bed with its repose; and there is sleep, Natures soft nurse, that doth knit the ravelled sleeve of care, and steep your senses in forgetfulness. And there is not merely the night, but the Sabbath. But there is also a weariness which has the nature of a chastisement, because it is produced by excessive and needless toil. While labour is a Divine thing in just measure, yet, when it becomes care, worry, vexation, hot and insatiable ambition, greed, it becomes criminal, and draws after it sooner or later grim consequences, the thought of which ought to make men pause. You cannot run both quickly and long. What is the word in season for such cases as these? The word may not be pleasant, for the words in season which God utters to us are often like thunderclaps to startle us, or like a firm grip of the hand which seems to say, Stop, or you are undone. But surely the word in season to many is: Release your strain, moderate your speed, economize your energies, stop up the leak through which your health is trickling already, and may soon be rushing like a stream; what shall it profit you if you gain the whole world, and lose your life?
II. Some men are WEARY WITH PLEASURE. There is no decree of God more stern or more inflexible than that which has determined that misery shall be the constant companion of the man that seeks pleasure. He may be a swift runner, but pleasure runs more swiftly still. Let us accept it as a moral axiom which has no exception, that the fulfilment of duty is the condition of happiness in this world. The word in season, therefore, for those who are weary in pleasure is this: Revise and reverse your whole judgment as to what you are and as to your relation to God, and this world, and the world which is to come.
III. Some men are WEARY WITH WELL-DOING WHICH SEEMS TO COME TO SO POOR AN END. This is so common a tendency that we are warned against it, Be not weary in well-doing, for in due season ye shall reap if ye faint not. Be ye steadfast, unmovable, etc. Men who are working for God in this world have doubtless a heavy task in hand. The soil is uncongenial. It is beaten hard with sin and evil habit; and the ploughshare enters it with difficulty, and with difficulty makes its way. Take any sphere of benevolence you like, whether the lower one of sympathy with the common sufferings of man, or the higher one of concern for their spiritual necessities and sorrows and dangers, and the labour is no holiday play. Well-doing appears so often like building in a quagmire. We sow good seed, and then the enemy sows tares. We root up one evil, and another springs up in its stead. Well-doing in the shape of teaching would not be so wearying if the children were not so listless, so rude, so dull, so forgetful, so disappointing. Well-doing in the shape of charity would not be so wearying if there were not so much of ingratitude and imposture. What is the word in season to those who are weary in such good work? Such as these: Think, before you withdraw from what appears to be unfruitful labour, that God still holds on His Divine purpose, and is kind to the unthankful and the evil; think that He is good and doeth good continually, and that, were He to grow weary in well-doing, He would plunge the world into desolation in a moment. Think, too, that if you grow weary, all others may grow weary too, and that then the world will be left to itself: ignorance, vice, crime, wretchedness spreading with every hour, until the earth will be little better than a suburb of hell itself. Think, to, that in well-doing you do find some results, though they may not be equal to your hope, and that the results, though unseen, may still be there, and will appear some day, and be reaped by anothers hand. And be sure of this, that nothing good is ever lost.
IV. There are those who ARE WEARY OF THE STRIFE WITH SIN. This is emphatically the battle of life and the battle for life. What is the word in season to him who is thus weary? This--that Christ has already vanquished your most powerful foe, and will make you more than conqueror.
V. There is one word more in season for those who ARE WEARY IN SIN, BUT NOT YET WEARY OF IT. Would to God they were weary of it! for to feel it to be a burden and a woe is the first step to deliverance. (E. Mellor, D. D.)
Weary souls
So far as we can tell, all life is joyous, except that of humanity. Even those creatures which are under the care of man have not the joyousness they might have if they were roaming the fields or hills. Look at the horse on the American prairies; see him in some of the cabs and coal carts at home! Though the life of birds and animals is naturally a happy one, the life of humanity, for the most part, is one of trouble. People who firmly resolve to act rightly and Christianly in this world, shall certainly have tribulation. In the Bible, we have the record of many people who knew what it is to have a weary soul. Above all weary souls, let us remember the loving Saviour, who was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
I. YOU MAY BE WEARY WITH THE PARTICULAR BURDEN WHICH WEIGHTS YOUR LIFE. Every one of us has a special burden of our own. The Christian philosophy of burden-bearing is to take things as we find them and make the best of them; not like a vicious horse to kick against the splinter hoard, or set up our back rebelliously. Directly we submit to the yoke, and say Thy will he done, our burden becomes lighter. The Divine Word teaches that your life has a Divine purpose.
II. Perhaps, your soul is WEARY BECAUSE OF THE UNKINDNESS OF YOUR FRIENDS. Let your only aim be to please God and do your duty; and then, though the action of friends may grieve you, it shall neither hinder your work nor give you a weary soul.
III. But another may say that his weary soul is caused by HIS SIN. When you behold Jesus on the Cross you will see what He suffered for sin; and when you behold Him risen from the dead, you will see the power at your hand to enable you to flee from every temptation.
IV. Some of you may have weary souls, because YOUR LIFE IS VERY BITTER. But in heaven your sorrow and sighing, like that of the apostle John, shall flee away. (W.Birch.)
A word to the weary
I. Are there any WEARY WORKLINGS here? The soul of man once found its rest in God. Weary, was a word unknown in the language of Eden; for Jehovah was then the spirits home. Its affections reposed upon the all-sufficient God. He was a Friend of whose company the soul could never tire, and in whose service it never could grow weary. But now that the soul has taken leave of God, it has never found another rest like Him. Till it comes to live on God Himself, the hungry soul of man never will be satisfied. Ye worldlings, who wander joyless through a godless world, with weary feet and withered hearts, seeking rest and finding none, come to Jesus, and He will give you rest.
II. Are there any WEARY WITH THE BURDEN OF UNPARDONED GUILT? You remember when Christian had panted up the hill, and came in sight of the Cross, how his burden fell off and rolled away down into the sepulchre; and you remember how he wondered that the sight of a cross should instantly relieve him of his load. Come to Christ upon the Cross, and you will understand the pilgrims wonder; for your burden will, in like manner, fall off and disappear.
III. Are there any WEARIED WITH THE GREATNESS OF THEIR WAY? You have been long seeking salvation. Suppose that one of those winter evenings you went down into the country on a visit to a friend. It is a dark night when the stage coach stops; the conductor steps down, opens the door, and lets you out. He tells you that your friends house is hard by, and if the night were a little clearer, you would see it just over the way. Tis but a step, you cannot miss it. However, you contrive to miss it. Your guide springs up into the box--the long train of lamp light is lost in misty gloom, and the distant rumble of the wheels is drowned in the rush of the tempest. You are left alone. The directions you received were quite correct, and if you followed them implicitly, you could not go wrong. But you have a theory of the matter in your own mind. What did he mean by saying, that it was just a step? He cannot live so very near the highway. You pass the gate, and plod away up the hill, till at last you become impatient--for there are no symptoms of a dwelling here. You turn aside into this lane, and you climb over that stile, till weary with splashing through miry stubble fields, and all drenched with driving rain, you find yourself, after many a weary round, precisely where you started. Half dead with fatigue and vexation, you lift the latch of a cottage-door, and ask if they know where such-a-one resides. And a little child undertakes to guide you. He opens a wicket, and points to the long lines of light gleaming through a easement a few paces distant. Do you see the lights in yon window? Well, that is it; knock, and theyll open the door. In such a homely instance, you all know what it is to be weary in the greatness of your way--to spend your strength in a long circuit, when a single step might have sufficed. But are you sure that it is not in some such way, that you labour and find no rest, whilst there is but a step betwixt you and Christ? That is the wisest and happiest course which the sinner can take--to go at once to the Saviour. (J. Hamilton, D.D.)
The weary
Weary denotes a class to which a multitude belong that no man can number, of every nation, kindred, tribe, and people.
1. Physical weariness--of the slave on the march; of the toiler in the sweating den; of the seamstress working far into the night by the wasting taper; of the mother worn with watching her sick child.
2. Mental weariness--when the fancy can no longer summon at will images of beauty; and the intellect refuses to follow another argument, master another page, or cast up another column.
3. Heart weariness--waiting in vain for the word so long expected but unspoken; for the returning step of the prodigal; for the long-delayed letter.
4. The weariness of the inner conflict of striving day by day against the selfishness and waywardness of the soul on which prolonged resistance makes so slight an impression.
5. The weariness of the Christian worker, worn by the perpetual chafe of human sorrow, sin, and need. (F. B. Meyer, B.A.)
The gift of consolation
Nothing so clearly betokens a tongue befitting the disciples of God as the gift of consolation, and such a tongue has He who is the speaker here: to aid with words him who is exhausted--through the pain of suffering and mortification of spirit. (F. Delitzsch, D.D.)
He wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned
Gods day school
Morning by morning He openeth mine ear to hear as the scholars. If we would rightly understand this Divine application of Isaiahs words, we must first understand the human application of them, looking through the type to the anti-type, and thus beholding the Servant of Jehovah as blind and deaf, yet well-pleasing to God as one magnifying the law and making it honourable, and both shadowing forth and preparing the way for the perfect service of the perfect Servant. Taking first then this human view of the text, observe--
I. The closed ears of God s scholars. He openeth mine ear. In the earlier description of Israel, associated with Isaiahs call to the prophetic office (a passage more frequently quoted in the New Testament than any other words of the Old), the ear is said to be heavy, and the heart gross, and the eyes closed. Alas! this is the sorrowful condition not only of Israel but of humanity.
II. The closed ears Divinely opened. He openeth. The ear is too heavy for the word itself to penetrate tilt He who breathed it comes. By Him it is opened, at a time of spiritual crisis oftentimes, but even then the scholar of God is too often deaf to his Teachers voice. His ears need to be often opened anew. Morning by morning. We must all be day scholars in the school of God. And we learn as the scholars. The double meaning of this word scholar suits the meaning of the passage admirably. A scholar is one who is learning his alphabet, and a scholar is also one that knows much more than his fellow-men, and can teach them with the tongue of the scholar. But there must be learning before teaching, and if we are scholars in Gods school we shall know more than the ancients. What then are His lessons?
1. The first lesson God teaches is a lesson of obedience (verse 5).
2. The second lesson God teaches is a lesson in patience (verse 6). Morning by morning the Divine voice calls us to suffer as well as to do.
3. The third lesson God teaches is a lesson in boldness (verse 7). Flint-like are the true scholars of God. Omnipotence is on their side and they know it.
4. The fourth lesson God teaches is a lesson in service (verse 4). The ear is opened that the tongue may be loosed to speak for Him who opened it. Every scholar must be a teacher. Look at the application of the text to Jesus Christ. Isaiah was His favourite book, and this text doubtless was often in His mind, as it was once upon His lips.
(1) Do we learn obedience? He also learned obedience by the things that He suffered, so that it was His meat to do the will of God always, and in Him only was the ideal attitude of obedience realized. Lo I come: I delight to do Thy will, O My God.
(2) Do we painfully learn the lesson of patience? Let us consider Him who endured the contradiction of sinners.
(3) Do we gain something of His boldness? It was when the persecutors of the earliest disciples marvelled the boldness which they showed that they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus, for at His feet they had learned this manly virtue.
(4) Do we attempt service? How did Gods holy Servant fulfil His consoling mission by speaking words in season to the weary? And the old lesson is also the new, Have faith in God. The faith of the New Testament is the trust of the Old. (H. C. Leonard, M.A.)
The inspiration of noble ideas
Where do great men get their noblest ideas? Michael Angelo produced such exquisite faces that Fiesole declared he must have been in paradise to borrow them. A watchful heart will find God furnishing thoughts for such a generous service. One wonders whether Goethe had not been lately reading that verse (Isa_50:4) when he said that his best thoughts always came to him unawares, like birds pecking at his windows, and saying, Here we are! (C. S.Robinson, D.D.)
Gods voice heard in stillness
Said the aged Christian lady to Mark Rutherford, The voice of God, to me at least, hardly ever comes in thunder, but I have to listen in perfect stillness to make it out.
Morning communion with God
On the 1 st of May, in the olden times, many inhabitants of London used to go into the fields to bathe their faces with the early dew upon the grass under the idea that it would render them beautiful. This may have been superstitious, but to bathe ones face every morning in the dew of heaven by prayer and communion, is the sure way to obtain true beauty of life and character. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv4, 6 Isa_50:4-9. The Lord hath given me the tongue, &c.
OUR SAVIOUR’S QUALIFICATIONS FOR THE SUCCESSFUL ACCOMPLISHMENT OF HIS WORK
Isa_50:4-9. The Lord hath given me the tongue, &c.
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We suppose the prophet Isaiah to say something of himself in these verses, engaging and encouraging himself to go on in his work as a prophet, notwithstanding the many hardships he met with, not doubting that God would stand by him, and strengthen him; but, like David, he speaks of himself as a type of Christ. Through Isaiah it is Christ who speaks to us; and as we hearken to and reflect on His words, we note three characteristics in Him which qualify Him for and secure the success He anticipates.
I. HE WAS, AND IS, AN ACCEPTABLE PREACHER (Isa_50:4). He was this because—
1. God had given Him “the tongue of the learned.” God, who made man’s mouth, gave to Moses the tongue of the learned, to speak for the terror and conviction of Pharaoh (Exo_4:11-12). He gave to Christ the tongue of the learned, to speak a word in season for the comfort of those that are weary under the burden of sin (Mat_11:28). What a beautiful and precious feature was this in the ministry of our Lord! See what is now the best learning of a minister—to know how to comfort troubled consciences, and to speak patiently, properly, and plainly to the various cases of poor souls. Christ was able to do this because—
2. God had also, or previously, given Him “the ear of the learned”—the ability to receive instruction. Prophets have as much need of this as of the tongue of the learned, for they must deliver what they are taught, and no other (Eze_3:17). Christ Himself received, that He might give. None must undertake to be teachers, who have not first been learners (Mat_13:52). Nor is it enough to hear; we must “hear as the learned,” hear with all our faculties awake, hear as those who would learn by what we hear, hear and remember.
II. HE WAS, AND IS, A PATIENT SUFFERER (Isa_50:5-6). One would have thought that He who was commissioned and qualified to speak comfort to the weary would have met with no difficulty in His work, but universal acceptance; it was, however, quite otherwise. He had both hard work and hard usage to undergo; and here He tells us with what undaunted constancy He went through with it. We have no reason to question but that the prophet Isaiah went on resolutely in the work to which God had called him, though we read not of his undergoing any such hardships as are here (it may be figuratively) described; but we are sure that this prediction was literally fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Note—
1. His ready obedience to the call addressed to Him (Isa_50:5; Psa_40:6-7).
2. His patient endurance of all the suffering His obedience to the call involved (Isa_50:6). All this Christ underwent for us, and voluntarily, to convince us of His willingness to save us. How much He still undergoes, to what indignities He still submits, in His efforts to save man!
III. HE WAS, AND IS, A COURAGEOUS CHAMPION (Isa_50:7-9). All that in these verses was true of Isaiah is still more true of our Saviour. Observe—
1. The secret sources of His courage. They are two.
(1.) He was assured of Divine support. “The Lord God will help me.”
(2.) Of this He was assured, because He was assured also of Divine approval. “He is near that justifieth me.”
2. The results of His courage.
(1.) He was confident of success in His undertaking. “I shall not be confounded.… I shall not be ashamed.” Note, work for God is work we should not be ashamed of; and hope in God is hope we shall not be ashamed of.
(2.) He could bid defiance to all opposers and opposition. “God will help me: therefore have I set my face like a flint.” He had no fear of the slanders of His foes: “He is near that justifieth me.” Nor of their swords. “Who will contend with me?” &c.
(3.) He could foresee that He and His righteous cause would outlive all opposition. It was His foes who should pass away: “Lo, they all shall wax old like a garment; the moth shall eat them up”—a little thing will serve secretly and insensibly to destroy them.
CONCLUSION.—
1. These qualities being in Christ, let us not doubt that absolute and universal victory is before Him (H. E. I. 979).
2. These qualities were in all the world’s noblest reformers and benefactors.
3. These qualities must be in us, if we are to do any great work for God and our fellow-men. From Christ Himself let us seek them.—Matthew Henry: Commentary, in loco.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv4–8
Isaiah
THE SERVANT’S WORDS TO THE WEARY
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Isa 50:4.
In Isa 49:1 - Isa 49:6, the beginning of the continuous section of which these verses are part, a transition is made from Israel as collectively the ideal servant of the Lord, to a personal Servant, whose office it is ‘to bring Jacob again to Him.’ We see the ideal in the very act of passing to its highest form, and that in which it is finally fulfilled in history, namely, by the person Jesus. That Jesus was ‘Thy Holy Servant’ was the earliest gospel preached by Peter and John before people and rulers. It is not the most vital conception of our Lord’s nature and work. The prophet does not here pierce to the core, as in his fifty-third chapter with its vision of the Suffering Servant, but this is prelude to that, and the office assigned here to the Servant cannot be fully discharged without that ascribed to Him there, as the prophet begins to discern almost immediately. The text gives us a striking view of the purpose of Messiah’s mission and of His training and preparation for it.
I. The purpose of Christ’s mission.
There is a remarkable contrast between the stately prelude to the section of the prophecy in Isa 49:1 - Isa 49:26, and the ideal in this text. There the Servant calls the isles and the distant peoples to listen, and declares that His mouth is ‘like a sharp sword’; here all that is keen and smiting in His word has softened into gentle whispers of comfort to sustain the weary.
A mission addressed to ‘the weary’ is addressed to every man, for who is not ‘weighed upon with sore distress,’ or loaded with the burden and the weight of tasks beyond his power or distasteful to his inclinations, or monotonous to nausea, or prolonged to exhaustion, or toiled at with little hope and less interest? Who is not weary of himself and of his load? What but universal weariness does the universal secret desire for rest betray? We are all ‘pilgrims weary of time,’ and some of us are weary of even prosperity, and some of us are worn out with work, and some of us buffeted to all but exhaustion by sorrow, and all of us long for rest, though many of us do not know where to look for it.
Jesus may have had this word in mind, when He called to Him all them ‘that labour and are heavy laden.’ At all events, the prophet’s ideal and the evangelists’ story accurately correspond. Christ’s words have other characteristics, but are eminently words that sustain the weary and comfort the down-hearted. Who can ever calculate the new strength poured by them into fainting hearts and languid hands, the all but dead hopes that they have reanimated, the sorrows they have comforted, the wounds they have stanched?
What a lesson here as to the noblest use of high endowments! What a contrast to the use that so many of those to whom God has given ‘the tongue of them that are taught’ make of their great gifts! Literature yields but few examples of great writers who have faithfully employed their powers for that purpose, which seems so humble and is so lofty, the help of the weary, the comfort of the sad. Many pages in famous books would be cancelled if all that had been written without consideration for these classes were obliterated, as it will be one day.
But Christ not only speaks by outward words, but has other ways of lodging sustenance and comfort in souls than by vocables audible to the ear or visible to the eye on the page. ‘The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.’ He spoke by His deeds on earth, and in one and the same set of facts, He ‘began to do and to teach,’ the doing being named first. He ‘now speaketh from Heaven’ by many an inward whisper, by the communication of His own Spirit, on Whom this very office of ministering sustenance and comfort is laid, and whose very name of the Comforter means One who by his being with a man strengthens him.
II. The training and preparation of the Messiah for His mission.
The Messiah is here represented as having the tongue of ‘them that are taught,’ and as having it, because morning by morning He has been wakened to hear God’s lessons. He is thus God’s scholar-a thought of which an unreflecting orthodoxy has been shy, but which it is necessary to admit unhesitatingly and ungrudgingly, if we would not reduce the manhood of Jesus to a mere phantasm. He Himself has said, ‘As the Father taught Me, I speak these things.’ With emphatic repetition, He was continually making that assertion, as, for instance, ‘I have not spoken of Myself, but the Father which sent Me, He gave Me a commandment what I should say, and what I should speak . . . the things therefore which I speak, even as the Father hath said unto Me, so I speak.’
The Gospels tell us of the prayers of Jesus, and of rare occasions in which a voice from heaven spoke to Him. But while these are palpable instances of His communion with God, and precious tokens of His true brotherhood with us in the indispensable characteristics of the life of faith, they are but the salient points on which the light falls, and behind them, all unknown by us, stretches an unbroken chain of like acts of fellowship. In that subordination as of a scholar to teacher, both His divine and His human nature concurred, the former in filial submission, the latter in continual, truly human derivation and reception. The man Jesus was taught and, like the boy Jesus, ‘increased in wisdom.’
But while He learned as truly as we learn from God, and exercised the same communion with the Father, the same submission to Him, which other men have to exercise, and called ‘us brethren, saying, I will put my trust in Him,’ the difference in degree between His close fellowship with God the Father, and our broken and always partial fellowship, between His completeness of reception of God’s words and our imperfect comprehension, between His perfect reproduction of the words He had heard and our faint, and often mistaken echo of them, is so immense as to amount to a difference in kind. His unity of will and being with the Father ensured that all His words were God’s. ‘Never man spake like this man.’ The man who speaks to us once for all God’s words must be more than man. Other men, the highest, give us fragments of that mighty voice; Jesus speaks its whole message, and nothing but its message. Of that perfect reproduction He is calmly conscious, and claims to give it, in words which are at once lowly and instinct with more than human authority: ‘All things that I have heard of My Father I have made known unto you.’ Who besides Him dare make such a claim? Who besides Him could make it without being met by incredulous scorn? His utterance of the Father’s words was unmarred by defect on the one hand, and by additions on the other. It was like pure water which tastes of no soil. His soul was like an open vessel plunged in a stream, filled by the flow and giving forth again its whole contents.
That divine communication to Jesus was no mere impartation of abstractions or ‘truths,’ still less of the poor words of man’s speech, but was the flowing into His spirit of the living Father by whom He lived. And it was unbroken. ‘Morning by morning’ it was going on. The line was continuous, whereas for the rest of us, at the best, it is a series of points more or less contiguous, but with dark spaces between. ‘God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto Him.’
So, then, let us hold fast by Him, the Son in whom God has spoken to us, and to all voices without and within that would woo us to listen, let us answer with the only wise answer: ‘To whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv4, 5, 7, 8 General Information:
General Information:
Yahweh's servant begins to speak.
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The Lord Yahweh has given me a tongue as one of those who are taught
The word "tongue" represents what he says. Possible meanings are 1) Yahweh has enabled him to speak as one who has learned to speak skillfully. AT: "The Lord Yahweh has enabled me to be a skillful speaker" or 2) Yahweh has taught him what to say. AT: "The Lord Yahweh has enabled me to speak what he has taught me" (See: Metonymy)
he awakens my ear to hear
Here "my ear" refers to Yahweh's servant. Yahweh enabling him to hear and understand what Yahweh teaches him is spoken of as if Yahweh awakened his ear from sleep. AT: "he has enabled me to understand what he says" (See: Synecdoche and Metaphor)
like those who are taught
The servant compares himself with a student who learns from his teacher. Possible meanings are 1) "like one who learns from his teacher" or 2) "like one whom he has taught" (See: Simile and Active or Passive)
translationWords
Lord Yahweh
tongue
word
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv4, 6, 7, 8, 9 50:4-11 This is the third of four servant songs…
50:4-11 This is the third of four servant songs (see study note on 42:1-4). The faithful and suffering servant portrays an ideal Israel; the image was realized in Jesus Christ.
50:4 The Lord, who never grows weary (40:28), sends the servant with good news (see 40:28-31) to comfort those who are weary (see study note on 40:1-31).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.