Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;
Though He WAS (a positive fact: not a supposition, as were would imply) God's Divine Son (whence, in His agony, He so lovingly and often cried, Father, Matthew 26:39), yet He learned His obedience, not from His Sonship, but from His sufferings. As the Son, He always obeyed the Father's will; but the special obedience needed to qualify Him as our High Priest, He learned experimentally. Compare Philippians 2:6-8, "equal with God, but ... took upon Him the form of a servant, and became obedient unto death," etc. He was obedient before His passion; but He stooped to a more humiliating and trying form of obedience then [The Greek adage is, Patheemata, matheemata, 'sufferings, disciplinings.'] Praying and obeying, as in Christ's case, ought to go hand in hand.