From where does the earth receive its [rain] water? Rabbi Eliezer says: From the water of the ocean,29The ocean water evaporates to form clouds, and that water falls as rain. as it is written: “A mist would rise from the earth.” Rabbi Yehoshua said to him: But is the ocean water not salty?30So how can you say that rain originates there? He said to him: It becomes sweetened in the clouds, as it is written: “Which the skies distill” (Job 36:28).
Where is it distilled? In the skies. Rabbi Yehoshua says: [Rain comes] from the upper waters, as it is stated: “By the rains of the heavens it drinks water” (Deuteronomy 11:11). The clouds rise up from the earth to the firmament and there [from above] they receive it [rain] as from the mouth of a jug, as it is written: “Which cluster into rain from His mist” (Job 36:27).
And they [the clouds] separate it [the water] like a type of sieve, so that no drop touches its counterpart, as it is written: “Dripping water, thick clouds of the skies [sheḥakim]” (II Samuel 22:12). Why does he call it [the sky] sheḥakim? Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish said: It is because it crushes [shoḥakim] the water [into little pieces]. Rabbi Abba bar Kahana said: Like an omasum.31A digestive organ in ruminants that crushes their food. Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥman said: Like an animal’s intestines.