Bath Kol

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Bath Kol (Hebrew - daughter of the voice or daughter of a voice) is a form of Jewish divination or cleromancy, by using the first words from the Jewish scriptures accidentally heard from anyone speaking or reading to answer a question of the future. It is similar to the Christian Sortes Sanctorum, and Christian scholars interpreted it as the Jews' replacement for the great prophets when, "after the death of Malachi, the spirit of prophecy wholly ceased in Israel" (taking the name to refer to its being "the daughter" of the main prophetic "voice").^[1]

The Talmud^[2] relates that Rabbi Tochanan and Rabbi Simeon Ben Lachish wanted to know if their friend Samuel, a rabbi in Babylon, was well, and so said "Let us follow the hearing of Bath Kol." They were travelling near a school and, hearing a boy reading the phrase "And Samuel died"^[3], inferred from this that that their friend Samuel was dead, as was later proved to be the case.

[edit] References

1. ^ The Old and New Testament connected in the history of the Jews
2. ^ In Shabbath, fol. 8, col. 3 - reference given at The Old and New Testament connected in the history of the Jews
3. ^ First Book of Samuel, 25.1

[edit] Sources

• This page draws text from 'The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction', Vol. 10, Issue 273, September 15, 1827, a text now in the public domain.
• Humphrey Prideaux, The Old and New Testament connected in the history of the Jews, 1851.
• Thomas de Quincey, Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers, Vol. II.