Haggai 1:10

Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit.

Nature penalties

With respect to the withholding of dew and of produce, we know that the prophets took from the law what served to teach the people, and accommodated it to their own purposes. The curses of the law are general (Deuteronomy 11:17). It is therefore the same thing as though the prophet had said that what God had threatened by Moses was really fulfilled. It ought not to have been to them a new thing, that whenever heaven denied its dew and rain, it was a sign of God’s wrath. But as, at this day, during wars, or famine, or pestilence, men do not regard this general truth, it is necessary to make the application: and godly teachers ought wisely to attend to this point, that is, to remind men, according to what the state of things and circumstances may require, that God proves by facts what He has testified in His Word. God intimates that the heavens have no care to provide for us, and to distil dew so that the earth may bring forth fruit, and that the earth also, though called the mother of men, does not of itself open its bowels, but that the heavens as well as the earth bear a sure testimony to His paternal love, and also to the care which He exercises over us. God then shows, both by the heavens and the earth, that He provides for us; for when the heavens and the earth administer and supply us with the blessings of God, they thus declare His love towards us. So also, when the heaven is, as it were, iron, and when the earth with closed bowels refuses us food, we ought to know that they are commissioned to execute on us the vengeance of God. For they are not only the instruments of His bounty, but, when it is necessary, God employs them for the purpose of punishing us. (John Calvin.)