Komentaryong Sumisipi para sa Mga Awit 104:13

[Ps. 104:13]: “He gives the mountains drink from His upper chambers”: Because grasses and plants do not grow until the rain falls, it says: “He gives the mountains drink.” Right after this it says: “He causes grass to grow for the cattle; earth is sated by the fruit of Your deeds” [Ps. 104:14–15]. And where do they all come from? The “upper chambers,” which is to say “the fruit of Your deeds.” From the upper chambers, the glorious palaces which are the primal spiritual elements, come the forces that bring about rain for the world. This is the fruit of those “deeds,” for they are the cause of all being and non-being in the world, the cause of light and darkness. Of them are born the clouds¹⁷⁸Hebrew term obscure. over the earth, from which the rain comes. The Land of Israel drinks of the innermost and purest of these, since it is parallel to the central column, the innermost, while the rest of the world drinks of them in diluted form. Of this Scripture says: “He builds His upper chambers in the heavens and founds His vault upon the earth; He calls to the waters of the sea and pours them out over the face of the earth” [Amos 9:6]. After mentioning the upper chambers, he speaks of the rain that comes about through them. Job too mentions first the primal causes and then the rain that comes about because of them: “He looks to the ends of the earth and sees beneath all of heaven, making a weight for the wind and measuring out the waters. He makes a decree for the rain and a way for the thunderstorm” [Job 28:24–26]. The rain is sent forth as a result of those primal causes. Of this Scripture says: “Depth calls unto depth by the sound of Your channels” [Ps. 42:8]. Understand this. The drops of rain are the drops of sexual coupling, coming from that which is without end [eyn sof].

מבורכת ה' ארצו ממגד שמים מטל, “his (Joseph’s) land is especially blessed by the Lord, with the heavenly bounty of dew.” Moses refers to rain as מגד שמים (Ibn Ezra) reflecting a statement by the sages in Bereshit Rabbah 4,3 that the waters in the celestial regions were suspended (kept in place) only by a word of G’d. What are the “fruit” of these waters? The rain waters. This is also in line with what David said in Psalms 104,1: “You irrigate the mountains from Your lofts, from the ‘fruit’ of Your work the earth is sated.” The “heavens” are considered G’d’s “works.” We have another verse making a similar point in Psalms 8,4: “When I behold Your heavens, the “work” of Your fingers.” The psalmist calls the rain “the fruit of His works.” Similarly, here; Moses refers to this as מגד. By adding the word ומטל, Moses blesses Joseph with both dew and rainfall.

We find a disagreement between the scholars Rabbi Joshua and Rabbi Eliezer in Taanit 9 as to the precise origin of rain.
Rabbi Eliezer holds that all the waters in our terrestrial universe originate in the oceans (and are recycled via the sky). He bases his opinion on Genesis 2,6 that a mist rose from earth before it had ever rained. Rabbi Joshua believed that the earth gets its rainfall directly from heaven, seeing the Torah told us in our portion “you will drink water which originates in the rain from heaven.” Each one of the scholars has weighty arguments. Rabbi Eliezer cites a powerful proof from Psalms 33,7: “He heaps up the ocean waters like a mound, stores the ‘deep’ in vaults. Who caused the vaults to be filled with water? The “deep”, i.e. the waters of the ocean.” This appears to be proof that rain water originates in the ocean. How do we account for the salt in the waters of the ocean and the absence of such salt in rain water? We assume that while traveling as clouds the waters that had emerged from the ocean are being sweetened.
Rabbi Joshua cites proof for his opinion that the rain waters originate in heaven from Psalms 104,13: “He waters the mountains from His lofts.” Rabbi Yochanan said that the word מעליותיו in that verse refers to “celestial lofts.” He quotes a Baraitha in Taanit 10: “the waters of the ‘upper’ regions are suspended by an utterance of G’d, their ‘fruit’ is the rain water.” We know this from Psalms 104,13 which describes them as פרי מעשיך תשבע ארץ, “by the fruit of Your works the earth is sated.” The words of these scholars are truly divinely inspired.” It is entirely possible that both scholars are correct and that sometimes the rain waters originate in the oceans whereas on other occasions they are of celestial origin. The key to understanding the phenomena in question lies in the use by the Torah of two different words for the word rain, גשם and מטר, respectively. The word גשם refers to something physical, i.e. rain originating in the ocean, whereas the rain originating in the celestial spheres is described by using both the name גשם and the name מטר, (compare Isaiah 5,10, or Deut. 28,12). When the deluge occurred we also find that it consisted both of מטר and of גשם, compare Genesis 7,4 and 7,12.