Ulangan 28:12

28:12 The Lord will open for you his good treasure house, the heavens, to give you rain for the land in its season and to bless all you do; ¹  you will lend to many nations but you will not borrow from any.

Imamat 26:4

26:4 I will give you your rains in their time so that ²  the land will give its yield and the trees of the field will produce their fruit. ³ 

Ayub 5:10-11

5:10 he gives ⁴  rain on the earth, ⁵ 

and sends ⁶  water on the fields; ⁷ 

5:11 he sets ⁸  the lowly ⁹  on high,

that those who mourn ¹⁰  are raised ¹¹  to safety.

Ayub 37:11-13

37:11 He loads the clouds with moisture; ¹² 

he scatters his lightning through the clouds.

37:12 The clouds ¹³  go round in circles,

wheeling about according to his plans,

to carry out ¹⁴  all that he commands them

over the face of the whole inhabited world.

37:13 Whether it is for punishment ¹⁵  for his land,

or whether it is for mercy,

he causes it to find its mark. ¹⁶ 

Mazmur 65:9-13

65:9 You visit the earth and give it rain; ¹⁷ 

you make it rich and fertile ¹⁸ 

with overflowing streams full of water. ¹⁹ 

You provide grain for them, ²⁰ 

for you prepare the earth to yield its crops. ²¹ 

65:10 You saturate ²²  its furrows,

and soak ²³  its plowed ground. ²⁴ 

With rain showers you soften its soil, ²⁵ 

and make its crops grow. ²⁶ 

65:11 You crown the year with your good blessings, ²⁷ 

and you leave abundance in your wake. ²⁸ 

65:12 The pastures in the wilderness glisten with moisture, ²⁹ 

and the hills are clothed with joy. ³⁰ 

65:13 The meadows are clothed with sheep,

and the valleys are covered with grain.

They shout joyfully, yes, they sing.

Yeremia 14:22

14:22 Do any of the worthless idols ³¹  of the nations cause rain to fall?

Do the skies themselves send showers?

Is it not you, O Lord our God, who does this? ³² 

So we put our hopes in you ³³ 

because you alone do all this.”

Yehezkiel 34:26

34:26 I will turn them and the regions around my hill into a blessing. I will make showers come down in their season; they will be showers that bring blessing. ³⁴ 

Yoel 2:22-23

2:22 Do not fear, wild animals! ³⁵ 

For the pastures of the wilderness are again green with grass.

Indeed, the trees bear their fruit;

the fig tree and the vine yield to their fullest. ³⁶ 

2:23 Citizens of Zion, ³⁷  rejoice!

Be glad because of what the Lord your God has done! ³⁸ 

For he has given to you the early rains ³⁹  as vindication.

He has sent ⁴⁰  to you the rains –

both the early and the late rains ⁴¹  as formerly.

Yakobus 5:7

Patience in Suffering

5:7 So be patient, brothers and sisters, ⁴²  until the Lord’s return. ⁴³  Think of how the farmer waits ⁴⁴  for the precious fruit of the ground and is patient ⁴⁵  for it until it receives the early and late rains.

[28:12]  ¹ tn Heb “all the work of your hands.”

[26:4]  ² tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.

[26:4]  ³ tn Heb “the tree of the field will give its fruit.” As a collective singular this has been translated as plural.

[5:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “who gives.” The participle continues the doxology here. But the article is necessary because of the distance between this verse and the reference to God.

[5:10]  sn He gives rain. The use of the verb “gives” underscores the idea that rain is a gift from God. This would be more keenly felt in the Middle East where water is scarce.

[5:10]  ⁵ tn In both halves of the verse the literal rendering would be “upon the face of the earth” and “upon the face of the fields.”

[5:10]  ⁶ tn The second participle is simply coordinated to the first and therefore does not need the definite article repeated (see GKC 404 §126.b).

[5:10]  ⁷ tn The Hebrew term חוּצוֹת (khutsot) basically means “outside,” or what is outside. It could refer to streets if what is meant is outside the house; but it refers to fields here (parallel to the more general word) because it is outside the village. See Ps 144:13 for the use of the expression for “countryside.” The LXX gives a much wider interpretation: “what is under heaven.”

[5:11]  ⁸ tn Heb “setting.” The infinitive construct clause is here taken as explaining the nature of God, and so parallel to the preceding descriptions. If read simply as a purpose clause after the previous verse, it would suggest that the purpose of watering the earth was to raise the humble (cf. NASB, “And sends water on the fields, // So that He sets on high those who are lowly”). A. B. Davidson (Job, 39) makes a case for this interpretation, saying that God’s gifts in nature have the wider purpose of blessing man, but he prefers to see the line as another benevolence, parallel to v. 10, and so suggests a translation “setting up” rather than “to set up.”

[5:11]  ⁹ tn The word שְׁפָלִים (shÿfalim) refers to “those who are down.” This refers to the lowly and despised of the earth. They are the opposite of the “proud” (see Ps 138:6). Here there is a deliberate contrast between “lowly” and “on high.”

[5:11]  ¹⁰ tn The meaning of the word is “to be dark, dirty”; therefore, it refers to the ash-sprinkled head of the mourner (H. H. Rowley, Job [NCBC], 54). The custom was to darken one’s face in sorrow (see Job 2:12; Ps 35:14; 38:7).

[5:11]  ¹¹ tn The perfect verb may be translated “be set on high; be raised up.” E. Dhorme (Job, 64) notes that the perfect is parallel to the infinitive of the first colon, and so he renders it in the same way as the infinitive, comparing the construction to that of 28:25.

[37:11]  ¹² tn The word “moisture” is drawn from רִי (ri) as a contraction for רְוִי (rÿvi). Others emended the text to get “hail” (NAB) or “lightning,” or even “the Creator.” For these, see the various commentaries. There is no reason to change the reading of the MT when it makes perfectly good sense.

[37:12]  ¹³ tn The words “the clouds” are supplied from v. 11; the sentence itself actually starts: “and it goes round,” referring to the cloud.

[37:12]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “that it may do.”

[37:13]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “rod,” i.e., a rod used for punishment.

[37:13]  ¹⁶ tn This is interpretive; Heb “he makes find it.” The lightning could be what is intended here, for it finds its mark. But R. Gordis (Job, 429) suggests man is the subject – let him find what it is for, i.e., the fate appropriate for him.

[65:9]  ¹⁷ tn The verb form is a Polel from שׁוּק (shuq, “be abundant”), a verb which appears only here and in Joel 2:24 and 3:13, where it is used in the Hiphil stem and means “overflow.”

[65:9]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “you greatly enrich it.”

[65:9]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “[with] a channel of God full of water.” The divine name is probably used here in a superlative sense to depict a very deep stream (“a stream fit for God,” as it were).

[65:9]  ²⁰ tn The pronoun apparently refers to the people of the earth, mentioned in v. 8.

[65:9]  ²¹ tn Heb “for thus [referring to the provision of rain described in the first half of the verse] you prepare it.” The third feminine singular pronominal suffix attached to the verb “prepare” refers back to the “earth,” which is a feminine noun with regard to grammatical form.

[65:10]  ²² tn Heb “saturating” [the form is an infinitive absolute].

[65:10]  ²³ tn Heb “flatten, cause to sink.”

[65:10]  ²⁴ tn Heb “trenches,” or “furrows.”

[65:10]  ²⁵ tn Heb “soften it,” that is, the earth.

[65:10]  ²⁶ tn Heb “its vegetation you bless.” Divine “blessing” often involves endowing an object with special power or capacity.

[65:11]  ²⁷ tn Heb “your good,” which refers here to agricultural blessings.

[65:11]  ²⁸ tn Heb “and your paths drip with abundance.”

[65:12]  ²⁹ tn Heb “drip.”

[65:12]  ³⁰ tn That is, with rich vegetation that brings joy to those who see it.

[14:22]  ³¹ tn The word הֶבֶל (hevel), often translated “vanities”, is a common pejorative epithet for idols or false gods. See already in 8:19 and 10:8.

[14:22]  ³² tn Heb “Is it not you, O Lord our God?” The words “who does” are supplied in the translation for English style.

[14:22]  ³³ tn The rhetorical negatives are balanced by a rhetorical positive.

[34:26]  ³⁴ tn Heb “showers of blessing.” Abundant rain, which in turn produces fruit and crops (v. 27), is a covenantal blessing for obedience (Lev 26:4).

[2:22]  ³⁵ tn Heb “beasts of the field.”

[2:22]  ³⁶ tn Heb “their strength.” The trees and vines will produce a maximum harvest, in contrast to the failed agricultural conditions previously described.

[2:23]  ³⁷ tn Heb “sons of Zion.”

[2:23]  ³⁸ tn Heb “be glad in the Lord your God.”

[2:23]  ³⁹ tn Normally the Hebrew word הַמּוֹרֶה (hammoreh) means “the teacher,” but here and in Ps 84:7 it refers to “early rains.” Elsewhere the word for “early rains” is יוֹרֶה (yoreh). The phrase here הַמּוֹרֶה לִצְדָקָה (hammoreh litsdaqah) is similar to the expression “teacher of righteousness” (Heb., מוֹרֶה הַצֶּדֶק , moreh hatsedeq) found in the Dead Sea Scrolls referring to a particular charismatic leader, although the Qumran community seems not to have invoked this text in support of that notion.

[2:23]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “caused to come down.”

[2:23]  ⁴¹ sn For half the year Palestine is generally dry. The rainy season begins with the early rains usually in late October to early December, followed by the latter rains in March and April. Without these rains productive farming would not be possible, as Joel’s original readers knew only too well.

[5:7]  ⁴² tn Grk “brothers”; this phrase occurs again three times in the paragraph. See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:2.

[5:7]  ⁴³ tn Or “advent”; or “coming” (also in v. 8).

[5:7]  ⁴⁴ tn Grk “Behold! The farmer waits.”

[5:7]  ⁴⁵ tn Grk “being patient.”