Deuteronomy 11:17

11:17 Then the anger of the Lord will erupt ¹  against you and he will close up the sky ²  so that it does not rain. The land will not yield its produce, and you will soon be removed ³  from the good land that the Lord ⁴  is about to give you.

Deuteronomy 28:23-24

28:23 The ⁵  sky ⁶  above your heads will be bronze and the earth beneath you iron. 28:24 The Lord will make the rain of your land powder and dust; it will come down on you from the sky until you are destroyed.

Deuteronomy 28:1

The Covenant Blessings

28:1 “If you indeed ⁷  obey the Lord your God and are careful to observe all his commandments I am giving ⁸  you today, the Lord your God will elevate you above all the nations of the earth.

Deuteronomy 8:1

The Lord’s Provision in the Desert

8:1 You must keep carefully all these commandments ⁹  I am giving ¹⁰  you today so that you may live, increase in number, ¹¹  and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised to your ancestors. ¹² 

Deuteronomy 17:1-2

17:1 You must not sacrifice to him ¹³  a bull or sheep that has a blemish or any other defect, because that is considered offensive ¹⁴  to the Lord your God. 17:2 Suppose a man or woman is discovered among you – in one of your villages ¹⁵  that the Lord your God is giving you – who sins before the Lord your God ¹⁶  and breaks his covenant

Deuteronomy 6:1

Exhortation to Keep the Covenant Principles

6:1 Now these are the commandments, ¹⁷  statutes, and ordinances that the Lord your God instructed me to teach you so that you may carry them out in the land where you are headed ¹⁸ 

Deuteronomy 7:13

7:13 He will love and bless you, and make you numerous. He will bless you with many children, ¹⁹  with the produce of your soil, your grain, your new wine, your oil, the offspring of your oxen, and the young of your flocks in the land which he promised your ancestors to give you.

Isaiah 5:6

5:6 I will make it a wasteland;

no one will prune its vines or hoe its ground, ²⁰ 

and thorns and briers will grow there.

I will order the clouds

not to drop any rain on it.

Jeremiah 14:4

14:4 They are dismayed because the ground is cracked ²¹ 

because there has been no rain in the land.

The farmers, too, are dismayed

and bury their faces in their hands.

Jeremiah 14:22

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

Do the skies themselves send showers?

Is it not you, O Lord our God, who does this? ²³ 

So we put our hopes in you ²⁴ 

because you alone do all this.”

Amos 4:7-8

4:7 “I withheld rain from you three months before the harvest. ²⁵ 

I gave rain to one city, but not to another.

One field ²⁶  would get rain, but the field that received no rain dried up.

4:8 People from ²⁷  two or three cities staggered into one city to get ²⁸  water,

but remained thirsty. ²⁹ 

Still you did not come back to me.”

The Lord is speaking!

James 5:17

5:17 Elijah was a human being ³⁰  like us, and he prayed earnestly ³¹  that it would not rain and there was no rain on the land for three years and six months!

Revelation 11:6

11:6 These two have the power ³²  to close up the sky so that it does not rain during the time ³³  they are prophesying. They ³⁴  have power ³⁵  to turn the waters to blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague whenever they want.

[11:17]  ¹ tn Heb “will become hot”; KJV, NASB, NRSV “will be kindled”; NAB “will flare up”; NIV, NLT “will burn.”

[11:17]  ² tn Or “heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.

[11:17]  ³ tn Or “be destroyed”; NAB, NIV “will soon perish.”

[11:17]  ⁴ tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 11:4.

[28:23]  ⁵ tc The MT reads “Your.” The LXX reads “Heaven will be to you.”

[28:23]  ⁶ tn Or “heavens” (also in the following verse). The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.

[28:1]  ⁷ tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, which the translation indicates with “indeed.”

[28:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “commanding”; NAB “which I enjoin on you today” (likewise in v. 15).

[8:1]  ⁹ tn The singular term (מִצְוָה, mitsvah) includes the whole corpus of covenant stipulations, certainly the book of Deuteronomy at least (cf. Deut 5:28; 6:1, 25; 7:11; 11:8, 22; 15:5; 17:20; 19:9; 27:1; 30:11; 31:5). The plural (מִצְוֹת, mitsot) refers to individual stipulations (as in vv. 2, 6).

[8:1]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “commanding” (so NASB). For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, “giving” has been used in the translation (likewise in v. 11).

[8:1]  ¹¹ tn Heb “multiply” (so KJV, NASB, NLT); NIV, NRSV “increase.”

[8:1]  ¹² tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 16, 18).

[17:1]  ¹³ tn Heb “to the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in 16:1.

[17:1]  ¹⁴ tn The Hebrew word תּוֹעֵבָה (to’evah, “an abomination”; cf. NAB) describes persons, things, or practices offensive to ritual or moral order. See M. Grisanti, NIDOTTE 4:314-18; see also the note on the word “abhorrent” in Deut 7:25.

[17:2]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “gates.”

[17:2]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “does the evil in the eyes of the Lord your God.”

[6:1]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “commandment.” The word מִצְוָה (mitsvah) again is in the singular, serving as a comprehensive term for the whole stipulation section of the book. See note on the word “commandments” in 5:31.

[6:1]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “where you are going over to possess it” (so NASB); NRSV “that you are about to cross into and occupy.”

[7:13]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “will bless the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).

[5:6]  ²⁰ tn Heb “it will not be pruned or hoed” (so NASB); ASV and NRSV both similar.

[14:4]  ²¹ tn For the use of the verb “is cracked” here see BDB 369 s.v. חָתַת Qal.1 and compare the usage in Jer 51:56 where it refers to broken bows. The form is a relative clause without relative pronoun (cf., GKC 486-87 §155.f). The sentence as a whole is related to the preceding through a particle meaning “because of” or “on account of.” Hence the subject and verb have been repeated to make the connection.

[14:22]  ²² 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]  ²³ tn Heb “Is it not you, O Lord our God?” The words “who does” are supplied in the translation for English style.

[14:22]  ²⁴ tn The rhetorical negatives are balanced by a rhetorical positive.

[4:7]  ²⁵ sn Rain…three months before the harvest refers to the rains of late March-early April.

[4:7]  ²⁶ tn Heb “portion”; KJV, ASV “piece”; NASB “part.” The same word occurs a second time later in this verse.

[4:8]  ²⁷ tn The words “people from” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[4:8]  ²⁸ tn Heb “to drink.”

[4:8]  ²⁹ tn Or “were not satisfied.”

[5:17]  ³⁰ tn Although it is certainly true that Elijah was a “man,” here ἄνθρωπος (anqrwpo") has been translated as “human being” because the emphasis in context is not on Elijah’s masculine gender, but on the common humanity he shared with the author and the readers.

[5:17]  ³¹ tn Grk “he prayed with prayer” (using a Hebrew idiom to show intensity).

[11:6]  ³² tn Or “authority.”

[11:6]  ³³ tn Grk “the days.”

[11:6]  ³⁴ tn Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation. Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[11:6]  ³⁵ tn Or “authority.”