5:18b

the heavens gave rain: The phrase the heavens may refer to:

(a) the clouds and the sky. For example:

rain came down from the sky (New Century Version)

(b) God, who sent the rain. It did not just come automatically. (See 1 Samuel 12:17; 1 Kings 18:1; and Acts 14:17 for the idea of God giving rain.) For example:

God caused rain to fall
-or-
God again brought the rains to the land

In some languages, it may be natural to combine (a) and (b). For example:

God caused rain to fall from the sky

5:18c

the earth yielded its crops: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as the earth here means “the ground,” “the soil,” or “the land.” After the rains came again, in due course the ground produced the crops that it normally produced.

Some other ways to translate this clause are:

and the land produced crops again (New Century Version)
-or-
and the fields/farms grew plants
-or-
and the crops grew well in the fields

In some languages, it is not necessary to translate the phrase the earth. For example:

and the crops began to grow again (New Living Translation, 1996 edition)

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All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible. BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.