Bat kol. Daughter of the voice. In rabbinic Hebrew the phrase names the pattern of HaShem speaking from above into the earth-scene, an echo of the prophetic voice available even in eras when prophecy is veiled. The Tanakh prepares the pattern. Sinai is bat kol: HaShem speaks from the mountain, the people hear, the people tremble.

The Brit Chadashah uses the pattern at three load-bearing moments. At the Jordan, the bat kol declares Yeshua's coronation: This is My Son, the Beloved, in whom I am well pleased. The words are Psalm 2:7 woven with Isaiah 42:1, Davidic king and suffering Servant in one breath. At the Transfiguration, the same voice repeats the formula and adds Listen to him. At Yochanan 12:28, the bat kol speaks once more: I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.

KJV, ESV, NASB, and NIV translate the underlying Greek phrasing as "a voice from heaven." Accurate, and almost completely empty of the Hebrew framework. English readers hear the voice as exotic intervention. The first-century Jew hearing it remembered Sinai. The voice was not new. It was old, and it was speaking again.