Voice of God

In the Abrahamic religions, the voice of God is a communication from God to human beings, heard by humans as a sound with no apparent physical source. In rabbinic Judaism, such a voice was known as a bat kol (בַּת⁠ קוֹל baṯ qōl, literally "daughter of voice"), and was a "heavenly or divine voice which proclaims God's will or judgment." It differed from prophecy in that God had a close relationship with the prophet, while the bat kol could be heard by any individual or group regardless of their level of connection to God. In the Hebrew Bible, the characteristic attributes of the voice of God are the invisibility of the speaker and a certain remarkable quality in the sound, regardless of its strength or weakness. A sound proceeding from some invisible source was considered a heavenly voice, since the mass revelation on Sinai was given in that way: "Ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice" (). In this account, God reveals himself to man through the organs of hearing, not through those of sight. Even the prophet Ezekiel, who saw many visions, "heard a voice of one that spoke"; similarly, Elijah recognized God by a "still, small voice," and a voice addressed him. Sometimes God's voice rang from the heights, from Jerusalem, or from Zion; and God's voice was heard in the thunder and in the roar of the sea. The phrase bat kol appears in many Talmudic stories to represent a heavenly or divine voice to human beings. It proclaims God's will or judgment, His deeds and His commandments to individuals or to a number of persons, to rulers, communities, and even to whole nations. The phrase bat kol literally means "daughter of voice" – that is, a small voice – in order to distinguish it from the usual voice. The meaning of the word is "sound," "resonance." In this sense it appears in a secular context: "As oil has no bat kol [that is, gives no sound], so Israel is not heard of in this world..." Similarly, in one passage Divine revelation is said to lack a bat kol or echo: Johanan said, 'When God revealed the Torah, no sparrow chirped, no bird flew, no ox lowed;'.