Psalms 65:9-13

65:9 You visit the earth and give it rain; ¹ 

you make it rich and fertile ² 

with overflowing streams full of water. ³ 

You provide grain for them, ⁴ 

for you prepare the earth to yield its crops. ⁵ 

65:10 You saturate ⁶  its furrows,

and soak ⁷  its plowed ground. ⁸ 

With rain showers you soften its soil, ⁹ 

and make its crops grow. ¹⁰ 

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

and you leave abundance in your wake. ¹² 

65:12 The pastures in the wilderness glisten with moisture, ¹³ 

and the hills are clothed with joy. ¹⁴ 

65:13 The meadows are clothed with sheep,

and the valleys are covered with grain.

They shout joyfully, yes, they sing.

Psalms 104:13-14

104:13 He waters the mountains from the upper rooms of his palace; ¹⁵ 

the earth is full of the fruit you cause to grow. ¹⁶ 

104:14 He provides grass ¹⁷  for the cattle,

and crops for people to cultivate, ¹⁸ 

so they can produce food from the ground, ¹⁹ 

Job 5:10

5:10 he gives ²⁰  rain on the earth, ²¹ 

and sends ²²  water on the fields; ²³ 

Jeremiah 14:22

14:22 Do any of the worthless idols ²⁴  of the nations cause rain to fall?

Do the skies themselves send showers?

Is it not you, O Lord our God, who does this? ²⁵ 

So we put our hopes in you ²⁶ 

because you alone do all this.”

Joel 2:23

2:23 Citizens of Zion, ²⁷  rejoice!

Be glad because of what the Lord your God has done! ²⁸ 

For he has given to you the early rains ²⁹  as vindication.

He has sent ³⁰  to you the rains –

both the early and the late rains ³¹  as formerly.

Amos 5:7-8

5:7 The Israelites ³²  turn justice into bitterness; ³³ 

they throw what is fair and right ³⁴  to the ground. ³⁵ 

5:8 (But there is one who made the constellations Pleiades and Orion;

he can turn the darkness into morning

and daylight ³⁶  into night.

He summons the water of the seas

and pours it out on the earth’s surface.

The Lord is his name!

Matthew 5:45

5:45 so that you may be like ³⁷  your Father in heaven, since he causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

Acts 14:17

14:17 yet he did not leave himself without a witness by doing good, ³⁸  by giving you rain from heaven ³⁹  and fruitful seasons, satisfying you ⁴⁰  with food and your hearts with joy.” ⁴¹ 

James 5:17-18

5:17 Elijah was a human being ⁴²  like us, and he prayed earnestly ⁴³  that it would not rain and there was no rain on the land for three years and six months! 5:18 Then ⁴⁴  he prayed again, and the sky gave rain and the land sprouted with a harvest.

[65:9]  ¹ 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]  ² tn Heb “you greatly enrich it.”

[65:9]  ³ 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]  ⁴ tn The pronoun apparently refers to the people of the earth, mentioned in v. 8.

[65:9]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ tn Heb “saturating” [the form is an infinitive absolute].

[65:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “flatten, cause to sink.”

[65:10]  ⁸ tn Heb “trenches,” or “furrows.”

[65:10]  ⁹ tn Heb “soften it,” that is, the earth.

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

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

[65:11]  ¹² tn Heb “and your paths drip with abundance.”

[65:12]  ¹³ tn Heb “drip.”

[65:12]  ¹⁴ tn That is, with rich vegetation that brings joy to those who see it.

[104:13]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “from his upper rooms.”

[104:13]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “from the fruit of your works the earth is full.” The translation assumes that “fruit” is literal here. If “fruit” is understood more abstractly as “product; result,” then one could translate, “the earth flourishes as a result of your deeds” (cf. NIV, NRSV, REB).

[104:14]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “causes the grass to sprout up.”

[104:14]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “for the service of man” (see Gen 2:5).

[104:14]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “to cause food to come out from the earth.”

[5:10]  ²⁰ 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]  ²¹ 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]  ²² 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]  ²³ 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.”

[14:22]  ²⁴ 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]  ²⁵ tn Heb “Is it not you, O Lord our God?” The words “who does” are supplied in the translation for English style.

[14:22]  ²⁶ tn The rhetorical negatives are balanced by a rhetorical positive.

[2:23]  ²⁷ tn Heb “sons of Zion.”

[2:23]  ²⁸ tn Heb “be glad in the Lord your God.”

[2:23]  ²⁹ 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]  ³⁰ tn Heb “caused to come down.”

[2:23]  ³¹ 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]  ³² tn Heb “Those who”; the referent (the Israelites) has been specified in the translation for clarity. In light of vv. 11-13, it is also possible that the words are directed at a more limited group within the nation – those with social and economic power.

[5:7]  ³³ tn There is an interesting wordplay here with the verb הָפַךְ (hafakh, “overturn, turn”). Israel “turns” justice into wormwood (cf. 6:12), while the Lord “turns” darkness into morning (v. 8; cf. 4:11; 8:10). Israel’s turning is for evil, whereas the Lord’s is to demonstrate his absolute power and sovereignty.

[5:7]  ³⁴ tn Heb “they throw righteousness.”

[5:7]  ³⁵ sn In v. 7 the prophet begins to describe the guilty Israelites, but then interrupts his word picture with a parenthetical, but powerful, description of the judge they must face (vv. 8-9). He resumes his description of the sinners in v. 10.

[5:8]  ³⁶ tn Heb “darkens the day into night.”

[5:45]  ³⁷ tn Grk “be sons of your Father in heaven.” Here, however, the focus is not on attaining a relationship (becoming a child of God) but rather on being the kind of person who shares the characteristics of God himself (a frequent meaning of the Semitic idiom “son of”). See L&N 58.26.

[14:17]  ³⁸ tn The participle ἀγαθουργῶν (agaqourgwn) is regarded as indicating means here, parallel to the following participles διδούς (didou") and ἐμπιπλῶν (empiplwn). This is the easiest way to understand the Greek structure. Semantically, the first participle is a general statement, followed by two participles giving specific examples of doing good.

[14:17]  ³⁹ tn Or “from the sky” (the same Greek word means both “heaven” and “sky”).

[14:17]  ⁴⁰ tn Grk “satisfying [filling] your hearts with food and joy.” This is an idiomatic expression; it strikes the English reader as strange to speak of “filling one’s heart with food.” Thus the additional direct object “you” has been supplied, separating the two expressions somewhat: “satisfying you with food and your hearts with joy.”

[14:17]  ⁴¹ sn God’s general sovereignty and gracious care in the creation are the way Paul introduces the theme of the goodness of God. He was trying to establish monotheism here. It is an OT theme (Gen 8:22; Ps 4:7; 145:15-16; 147:8-9; Isa 25:6; Jer 5:24) which also appears in the NT (Luke 12:22-34).

[5:17]  ⁴² 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]  ⁴³ tn Grk “he prayed with prayer” (using a Hebrew idiom to show intensity).

[5:18]  ⁴⁴ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events.