Deuteronomy 11:14

That I will give you the rain of your land in his due season,.... Such a quantity of it as the land required, a sufficiency of it to make it fruitful, and that in proper time: the first rain and the

That I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil. The first rain, and the latter rain.

The rain of your land, i.e. which is needful and sufficient for your land; or which is proper to your land, not common to Egypt, where, as all authors agree, there is little or no rain. The first rain and the latter rain; the first fell in seed time, to make the corn spring, the other a little before harvest, to ripen it. See .

Deuteronomy 11:14 That I will give [you] the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil.Ver. 14. That I will give you the rain.] Rain God gives to all by a providence, but to his Israel by virtue of a promise, whereby they might "live, not as by bread only, but as by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."

(14) The first rain (after sowing), the latter rain (just before harvest). In the ninth month and the first month respectively. (See Ezra 10:9; Ezra 10:13, and Joe 2:23.) That thou mayest gather in.—Literally, and thou shalt gather in. Rashi reminds us that this may mean “thou, and not thine enemies.” “They that have gathered it shall eat it” (Isaiah 62:8-9).

Verse 14. The rain - in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain] By the first or former rain we are to understand that which fell in Judea about November, when they sowed their seed, and this served to moisten and prepare the ground for the vegetation of the seed. The latter rain fell about April, when the corn was well grown up, and served to fill the ears, and render them plump and perfect. Rain rarely fell in Judea at any other seasons than these. If the former rain were withheld, or not sent in due season, there could be no vegetation: if the latter rain were withheld, or not sent in its due season, there could be no full corn in the ear, and consequently no harvest. Of what consequence then was it that they should have their rain in due season! God, by promising this provided they were obedient, and threatening to withhold it should they be disobedient, shows that it is not a general providence that directs these things, but that the very rain of heaven falls by particular direction, and the showers are often regulated by an especial providence.

14. that I will give the rain of your land] The Heb. text is evidently due to the same hand which inserted Deuteronomy 11:13, for it immediately follows that verse, and as evidently the original reading is that of Sam., LXX and Vulg. that he will give the rain to thy land, which connects with Deuteronomy 11:12. in its season, etc.] The agricultural year in Palestine consisted of two seasons, a rainy and a dry. ‘Towards the end of October heavy rains begin to fall, at intervals, for a day or several days at a time. These are what the English Bible calls the early or former rain, Heb. yôreh, the pourer. It opens the agricultural year; the soil, hardened and cracked by the long summer, rainless since May, is loosened, and the farmer begins ploughing. Till the end of November the average rainfall is not large, but it increases through December, January and February, begins to abate in March, and is practically over by the end of April. The latter rains, Heb. malḳ ?osh, from a root meaning to be late, are the heavy showers of March and April. Coming as they do when the grain is ripening, and being the last before the long summer drought, they are of far more importance to the country than all the rains of the winter months, and that is why these are so frequently passed over in Scripture, and emphasis is laid only on the early and latter rains1[129]’ (HGHL, pp. 63, 64). The annual rainfall is considerable: at Jerusalem it averages over 25 inches, about the same as the annual rainfall in London. Whether it was more copious in ancient times is a question much debated. For this and other details see the present writer’s Jerusalem, i. 19, 77 f. The growth of the vine and olive depend, like the ripening of the corn, essentially on the latter rain; and the olive requires the rainless summer for the ripening of its berries (op. cit. 300). [129] This has given people the idea that there are only two periods of rain in the Syrian year, at the vernal and the autumnal equinoxes; but the whole of the winter is the rainy season, as indeed we are told in the parallel lines of the Song of Songs: Lo the winter is past, the rain is over and gone (Deuteronomy 2:11).

The first rain and the latter rain - The former is the proper term for the autumn rain, falling about the time of sowing, and which may be named “the former,” as occurring in the early part of the

14. The first rain and the latter rain — In “the present time rain in an ordinarily good year falls first at the autumnal equinox. During November frequent thunderstorms occur, and about Christmas the weather is generally stormy.