22 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.
What a state the person is in who has deserted the easy yoke and the light burden of Christ to subject himself once again to the yoke of demons and to bear the burden of the heaviest sin! How can this be after we have known that the heart of those who worship idols is ashes20 and their life more worthless than clay, and after we have said, “Our ancestors possessed false idols, and none of them can bring rain”?
(Verse 22.) Are there any among the idols of the nations that can make it rain? Or can the heavens themselves give showers? Are you not the Lord our God, whom we have waited for? For you have made all these things. After many and various discourses, he returns to the title of the prophecy, in which it is written: that the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah concerning the words of drought. Therefore, what he says is this: because the idols of demons cannot make it rain, nor can the heavens themselves give their own shower, you, Lord our God, whom we have always waited for, in whom we turn our hopes and desires, give us your rain. For all things are yours; and whatever good exists, without you, to whom it belongs, cannot be given. Let us say this also against the heretics, who cannot bestow the rain of doctrine; and although they promise themselves to be heavens and boast about themselves: The heavens declare the glory of God (Psalm 19:1): yet they cannot give the downpour of doctrine. For God alone is the one who instructs his people and grants different graces to those who await him.
[AD 253] Origen of Alexandria on Jeremiah 14:22