34:26 showers. During the long centuries of Israel’s worldwide dispersion, the promised land had become largely a desert, and the former rainfall regimes had failed. With the modern return of the exiles, however, the lands have been substantially reclaimed, and the rains have returned in measure.

34:26 showers of blessing. This felicitous phrase provided the inspiration for the well-known gospel hymn with that name. The word translated “showers” is frequently translated “rain,” and is first used in Genesis 7:12, speaking of the “rain” that came down for forty days and nights to destroy the incurably wicked antediluvian population, thus serving as a blessing to those that were saved on the ark from being engulfed in that wickedness.