1 Enoch 54:8

Pseudepigrapha

7 'And in those days shall punishment come from the Lord of Spirits, and he will open all the chambers of waters which are above the heavens, and of the fountains which are beneath the earth. 8 And all the waters shall be joined with the waters: that which is above the heavens is the masculine, and the water which is beneath the earth is the feminine. 9 And they shall destroy all who dwell on the earth and those who dwell under the ends of the heaven. 10 And when they have recognized their unrighteousness which they have wrought on the earth, then by these shall they perish.

Jerusalem Berakhot 9:2

Jerusalem Talmud
Rabbinic

And Rebbi Levi said: The upper waters are male and the lower ones female. What is the reason? (Is. 45:8)168The verse starts: “The heavens should pour down from high, and the skies should flow with justice,” speaking of rain. The Babli has two contradictory sermons in this matter. Rav Yehudah is reported in Taänit 6b that rain is the earth’s husband because in Is. 55:10 it is said that rain makes the earth give birth, while Rebbi Abbahu (there and Berakhot 59b) says that a benediction is recited only if “the bridegroom goes towards the bride,” meaning that drops jump up from the earth towards the descending rain. [This is the traditional interpretation, given by Ashkenazic Rabbenu Gershom and Sephardic Rabbenu Ḥanan‘el. Rashi, sensing the apparent contradiction, has a prosaic interpretation, that on both sides of the street the gutters will spout water one towards the other.] “The earth shall open,” like a female who opens before a male; “they should bear fruit of help,” that is being fruitful and multiplying; “and justice shall sprout together,” that is rainfall; “I, the Eternal, did create it,” for that I created it, for the well-being of the world. Rebbi Aḥa stated it in the name of Rebbi Simeon ben Gamliel169This is the end of Rebbi Simeon ben Eleazar’s text in Tosephta Taäniot. In the Babli (Taänit 6b), this passage appears as a statement of the Amora Rebbi Abbahu.: Why is it called “fertilizing,” because it impregnates the earth.

 Notes and References

"... There are many straightforward parallels between Pirkei de Rabbi Eliezar and Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha that are also firmly based in Scripture. The points that all three share must derive then from the one that not only is the oldest, but the one from which the other two self-consciously draw. Therefore it must be assumed that PRE derived such material from its understanding of Scripture, rather than from a knowledge of apocryphal and pseudepigraphical literature ... Some of the PRE parallels that Friedlander argues are based upon Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha can also be traced to rabbinic literature. While it is true that the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha are often older than the (redacted) rabbinic texts, one cannot necessarily argue that their temporal priority gives them greater weight. Since PRE certainly has other passages "borrowed" from earlier rabbinic literature, it may be assumed that such three-way parallels (PRE, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, rabbinic literature) derive from rabbinic literature ... Waters from heaven are masculine, waters from beneath the earth are feminine (PRE 52; 1 Enoch 54:8; y. Berakhot 9:2) ..."

Urowitz-Freudenstein, Anna "Pseudepigraphic Support of Pseudepigraphical Sources: The Case of Pirqe de Rabbi Eliezer" in Reeves, John C. (ed.) Tracing the Threads: Studies in the Vitality of Jewish Pseudepigrapha (pp. 35-54) Scholars Press, 1994

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