The Lord our God, that giveth rain... — In the climate of Palestine, as it is now, there are not two distinct rainy seasons. The whole period from October to March has that character. The “early” rains are those that come in autumn, the latter those which close the season in spring. The former argument in what we may call the prophet’s natural theology had been drawn from the presence of law in the midst of what seemed the lawless elements of nature. Now he urges that drawn from regularity of succession. Compare Genesis 8:22; Psalms 148:8; Acts 14:17.
Rain, both the former and the latter. — Again a Deuteronomic phrase (Deuteronomy 11:14). Compare also James 5:7; Proverbs 16:15.
The appointed weeks of the harvest. — Literally, the weeks, the statutes, or ordinances, of the harvest, the seven weeks included between the beginning of the barley harvest at the Passover and the completion of the wheat harvest at Pentecost.