Then he prayed again: the expression does not mean that Elijah did not pray for three and a half years. The rendering “when he prayed again” could also be so misunderstood. What it means is that Elijah did not pray for rain again during this time (compare Contemporary English Version, “But when he did pray for rain…”).

The heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth its fruit: we should notice the neat balance in the pair heaven and earth in this sentence. Some translations ruin this balance by dropping the word heaven (so Living Bible, Revised English Bible). It is certainly more natural in English to use the word “sky,” for that is where the rain comes from. But in some languages “heaven” is where the rain comes from, not “sky”; and in this case “heaven” should be used. This should present no problem in languages where the same term is used for both “heaven” and “sky.”

Some commentators understand heaven to be a reference to God. This is not impossible, but in the present context heaven is used in contrast to earth. The word fruit here means “crops” (Good News Translation, New International Version, Revised English Bible), or more generally “vegetation” (Phillips) or “harvest” (New Revised Standard Version).

In languages that commonly use the pair “heaven [or, sky] … earth” it is desirable to keep the balance in translation by rendering the sentence as:
• The heaven poured down rain, and the earth brought forth vegetation.

Quoted with permission from Loh, I-Jin and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Letter from James. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .