The verb awakens
has a continuous sense. The Lord is pictured as giving every day to the Servant an alert ear, the ear of learners,
1 for the purpose of receiving from God what he needed in order to pass on to his hearers to sustain them in their weariness.2 The Servant remained a learner
all his days. And it is implied that his hearing included obedient submission to the teaching he received from God. For the verb to hear
in the Old Testament carries with it the notion of to obey.
So this Servant is a disciple who speaks what he has learned through a life of submissive obedience (see Psalm 40:8). 3
4 The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught.