A distinction must be drawn between the true Bath Kol — the Heavenly Voice which proceeded really and miraculously from God Himself directly — and the secondary Bath Kol, which was merely 'a human utterance heard by some chance, to which was attributed the significance of a Divine intimation ' (Dalman). In the former of these senses the expression is used to denote audible speech, appealing to the faculty of hearing, uttered by God Himself. Only, the Rabbis shrank from saying baldly, ' God said so and so,' and made use of the phrase ' A Bath Kol came (or was given)' instead. The phrase, like many others, is merely precautionary, nor has it any hypostatic significance.
One striking feature about the revelations conveyed by the Bath Kol is that these were usually expressed not in original words,' but in some verse or sentence taken from the Hebrew OT or (in some cases) from the Apocryphal books. Thus it is said that when the Rabbinical authorities proposed to include King Solomon among the finally lost, a Bath Kol was heard saying in the words of Job 3433 'Shall his recompense be as thou wilt, that thou refusest it?' t
(c) Significance of the Heavenly Voice in the NT. — Parallel with the true Bath ;^ol, which was regarded as one of the organs of Divine revelation, is the Heavenly Voice, heard at the Baptism of Jesus (Mt3i^ Mk 1", Lk 3^2), at the Transfiguration (Mt 17', Mk 9^ Lk ^), before the Passion ( Jn 1228), as well as that heard by St. Peter and again by St. Paul (Ac 9S cf. 22^ and 26i'» ; W^- ^% It is to be noticed that the Voice at the Baptism and the Transfiguration combines two sentences of Scripture (Ps 2^ and Is 41^) quite in the manner of the Bath 5ol spoken of in Rabbinical literature. An audible voice solemnly affirming or introducing a Divine revelation seems to be intended in every case.
The NT formula ViXBtv oSv (fuvri i» rov oupxvou (Jn 1228, cf. Rev 10*- 8 18-1 etc.) is the equivalent of the Rabbinical Hebrew D'Dtyn [D "^ip na nxs' and the Aram. N'Dts' p {<bp m3 np3i. In later Rabbinical literature the expression was abbreviated ('from heaven' being omitted), but its significance remained unaltered. For parallels in the extra-canonical literature of the OT, cf. Jub 1715, Bk. of Enoch Ixv. 4, 2 (4) Es 6i3f.. 'God's Voice,' i.e. the Heavenly Voice, is, of course, the correlative of 'God's Word' or ' Speech' (the Memra of J". "J XiD'D, i<J:2i). Cf. Bousset, Rel. d. Jud.^ p. 362 f.
The attempt of Edersheim (LT i. p. 285 f.) to discredit ' any real analogy ' between the Bath Kol and the Voice from Heaven mentioned in the Gospels is unwarranted. His contention that the Bath Kol could not be represented as accompanj'ing the descent of the Holy Spirit is shown by the facts adduced above to be baseless. On the contrary, it would only be natural to represent the revival of prophecy and the return in fuU power of the Holy Spirit as including also the mode of revelation expressed by the ' Daughter-Voice.' Only so would the scale of revelation be complete.
Literature.— The Lexx. s.v. ^mvr,, esp. Grimm-Thayer and Schleusner. To the important literature on Bath Kol already cited in the body of the article, add art. 'Bath Kol' in JE (with the literature cited at end) and in PRE^ ii. 443 f. (by Dalman); Weber, Jild. Theol.^ (reff. in Index). The passages relating to Vlp n3 have been collected by Pinner in his ed. of Berakhoth (Berlin, 1842), pp. 22-24 ; an elaborate presentment of the data with full discussion is given by E. A. Abbott in From Letter to Spirit (1903), pp. 139-460 ; add also Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. on Mt 3". G. H. BoX.
VOWS. — A vow (votum, e^x^) is a promise made to God Cpromissio Deo facta,' Thom. Aquin. II. ii. Q. 88). It is a perfectly natural, and indeed inevitable, expression of religious feeling wherever there is a conception of a personal God with whom men come into any kind of relationship. Thus vows form part of the great pre-Christian and non- Christian religious systems. They are of two kinds : ( 1 ) vows made in hope of receiving some desired good, or of delivery from some special danger ; and (2) vows of devotion made in expecta- tion of attaining closer relationship with God. In
* Schechter, ' Rabbinic Parallels to the NT,' JQR xii. 426 (April 1900).
t Cited by Schechter {op. cit. ib.). There are many other instances.
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tlie OT we have examples of (1) in Gn 282"- ", Jg ll^'', 1 S V^. Such vows may involve the dedication to God of a person, an animal, a field, a house or other property. Accurate laws were made for the regulating of such vows and the defining of persons competent to make them (Lv 27, Nu SO'*^-)- Of (2) the Nazirite vow taken for life (Jg 16^') or for a fixed period (Nu 6'^) is an example.
In our Lord's teaching there is only one mention of vows (Mt 15^«^- II Mk 7''*"'-)- Here He rebukes in the severest manner the making of vows which interfere with the simple and obvious duties of man to man, and, as may be gathered from the Rabbinical teaching on Corban, hypocritical vows wliieh were not meant to be kept. He says nothing about the making and keeping of justifiable and proper vows. It is therefore in accordance with a natural religious instinct and with the assumption