Jeremiah 14:22

Can the worthless idols of the nations bring rain? Do the skies alone send showers? Is this not by You, O LORD our God? So we put our hope in You, for You have done all these things.

Berean Standard Bible

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Study note

Setting — The remnant in Judah addresses the LORD during a drought, pleading for mercy while affirming His sole authority over the rain.

The words — בְּהַבְלֵי (behavlei), "vanities," from the root הבל (hevel), the same word meaning "vapor" or "breath" in Ecclesiastes; the idols are not merely false but literally insubstantial, like exhaled air that dissipates.

The thread — The same claim appears in Jeremiah 5:24 (God gives both autumn and spring rains in season), Joel 2:23 (He gives the autumn rains for vindication), and Psalms 135:7 (He generates lightning and rain from the ends of the earth).

Why it lands — The verse forces a binary: either the nations' gods are real and the LORD is not sovereign, or He is sovereign and they are vapor. It asks the reader to locate hope in the one who demonstrably acts, not in objects that cannot.

Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.

The Hebrew words

King James Version

Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain? or can the heavens give showers? art not thou he, O Lord our God? therefore we will wait upon thee: for thou hast made all these things.

Cross-references

Joel 2:23 Be glad, O children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God, for He has given you the autumn rains for your vindication. He sends you showers, both autumn and spring rains, as before.
Jeremiah 5:24 They have not said in their hearts, ‘Let us fear the LORD our God, who gives the rains, both autumn and spring, in season, who keeps for us the appointed weeks of harvest.’
Psalms 135:7 He causes the clouds to rise from the ends of the earth. He generates the lightning with the rain and brings forth the wind from His storehouses.
Isaiah 30:23 Then He will send rain for the seed that you have sown in the ground, and the food that comes from your land will be rich and plentiful. On that day your cattle will graze in open pastures.
Deuteronomy 32:21 They have provoked My jealousy by that which is not God; they have enraged Me with their worthless idols. So I will make them jealous by those who are not a people; I will make them angry by a nation without understanding.
Deuteronomy 28:12 The LORD will open the heavens, His abundant storehouse, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations, but borrow from none.
1 Kings 17:1 Now Elijah the Tishbite, who was among the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As surely as the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there will be neither dew nor rain in these years except at my word!”
1 Kings 17:14 for this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be exhausted and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the LORD sends rain upon the face of the earth.’”
Job 38:26 to bring rain on a barren land, on a desert where no man lives,
Psalms 25:21 May integrity and uprightness preserve me, because I wait for You.