From Book: A New Literal Translation From the Original Greek of All the Apostolical Epistles, Essay VIII,
"Concerning The Right Interpretation of the Writings in which the Revelations of God are Contained", p. 702, 1841.

3. Jacob likewise, and Esau, were typical persons ; for their struggling together in their mother's womb prefigured the wars which the nations who were to descend from them were to wage with each other : and Jacob's taking hold of Esau's heel in their birth, prefigured that the descendants of Jacob would subdue the descendants of Esau. So God told Rebecca, Gen. xxv. 23. ' Two nations are in thy womb ; and two kinds of people shall be separated from thy bowels : and the one people shall be stronger than the other people ; and the elder shall serve the younger."

4. Joshua, who was the high-priest of the Jews during the rebuilding of the temple, was an eminently typical person : For he prefigured our great high-priest Christ, as we learn from the vision in which the prophet Zechariah, chap. iii. 3, saw him standing before the angel of the Lord in filthy garments, to represent the iniquity of the many which was to be laid on Christ. These 'filthy garments the angel commanded to be taken away from him; and said, ver. 4, ' Behold I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, und I will clothe thee with change of raiment. 5. And I said, let them set a fair mitre upon his head : So they set a fair mitre upon his head,' such as the high-priest: wore when they officiated, ' and clothed him with garments.' Then, to show the emblematical meaning of the vision, the angel of the Lord said, ver. 8, ' Hear now, О Joshua, the high-priest, thou and thy fellows that sit before thee, for they are men of wonder," typical men. So the phrase signifies, Isa. viii. 18, ' For behold, I will bring forth my servant the Branch,' Wherefore, Joshua in his character as high-priest, and his fellows the high-priests who preceded him, were all of them types, or prefigurations, of God's servant the Branch, in his character as high-priest ; which also the author of the epistle to the Hebrews hath proved at great length. — Farther, to shew still more clearly that Joshua was a type of Christ, the prophet was ordered by God to take silver and gold and make crowns, and to set them on the head of Joshua in the house of Josiah, and to say to him, chap. vi. 12, 'Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Behold the man whose name is the Branch : He shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord ; — and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne ; and the counsel of peace shall be between them both." But the man whose name is the Branch, and who is here foretold to grow up out of his place, was, according to Isaiah, to be a descendant of Jesse. Chap xi. 1. ' And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots." Wherefore, Joshua being a descendant of Aaron, was not the person whom Isaiah foretold under the idea of a Branch growing out of the roots of Jesse ; consequently, when God ordered the prophet to say to Joshua and the witnesses, after putting the crowns on Joshua's head, Behold the man whose name it the Branch, his meaning certainly was, that Joshua was a type of the man whose name is the Branch, in his two offices of a king and a priest, and as the builder of the true temple of the Lord. Accordingly, that this cymbolical transaction might be remembered, and that Joshua in after ages might be known to have been a type and a pledge of the coming of the Man whose name is the Branch, the two crowns which the prophet had put on Joshua's head, as symbols of the two offices in which he was a type of Christ, were, by the command of God, delivered to the witnesses, to be laid up in the temple as a memorial, ver. 14.

If, because Zerubbabel at this time was the prince of the Jews, any one suspects that he, and not Joshua, was called the man whose name is the Branch, he ought to consider, that of the man whose name is the Branch it is said, ver. 13, not only 'that he shall build the temple of the Lord, — and shall sit and rule upon his throne,' but that ' he shall he a priest upon his throne;' for this could not be said of Zerubbabel, who was not a descendant of Aaron. We may therefore conclude, that the things said and done to Joshua by the prophet Zechariah, were said and done to him as a type of Christ.

5. Of typical persons who were not declared to be such, till the persons of whom they were types appeared, Adam deserves to be first mentioned. For, in respect of his being the author of sin and death to all his posterity, he is said by the apostle, Rom. v. 14, to be by contrast τυπος [tupos], 'the type or figure of him (Christ) who was to come,' for the purpose of being the author of righteousness and life to mankind. See Rom. v. 14. notes. Hence Christ is called, 1 Cor. xv. 45. the last Adam. — Adam was likewise a type of Christ in this respect, that Eve, who was an image of the church, was formed of a rib taken from Adam's side while he was in a deep sleep ; for this transaction prefigured the formation of the church, the Lamb's wife, by the breaking of Christ's side on the cross, while he slept the sleep of death, as the prophet insinuateth, Eph. v. 32. See the note on that verse.

6. Of persons who in their natural characters and fortunes were types of future persons and events, Abraham's wives and sons are remarkable examples. His wives, Hagar and Sarah, were types of the two covenants, by which men become the people of God ; and his sons Ishmael and Isaac were, in their characters and state, types of the people of God under these covenants. So the apostle Paul assures us, Gal. iv. 22. ' It is written that Abraham had two sons ; one by the bond-maid, and one by the free woman. 23. But he, verily, who was born of the bond-maid, was begotten according to the flesh ; but he who was born of the free woman was through the promise. 24. Which things are an allegory ; for these women are the two covenants : The one, verily, from Mount Sinai, bringing forth children unto bondage, which is Hagar. 25. For the name Agar denotes Mount Sinai in Arabia ; and she answereth to the present Jerusalem, and is in bondage with her children. 26. But the Jerusalem above is the free woman, who is the mother of us all.' See Gal. iv. 24, notes 1, 2, and ver. 25, notes, where, and in the commentary, this allegory is explained.

7. The third typical person I shall mention is David, who was raised by God to the government of the natural seed of Abraham, that in his office as their king, and in his wars against their enemies, he might be a type of Christ the Ruler and Saviour of Abraham's spiritual seed. This appears from what the angel who announced our Lord's birth said to his mother, Luke i. 32, ' The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his fattier David, and he shall rule over the house of Jacob for ever ; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.' For in what sense could our Lord's spiritual dominion be called the kingdom of his father David, unless David's kingdom was a type thereof ? In fact, the power and success with which David governed the natural seed, and subdued the neighbouring heathen nations, their enemies, was a fit prefiguration of the power and success with which Christ rules the spiritual seed, and subdues their enemies. — That David was a type of Christ appears from this also, that the prophets who foretold to the Israelites the coming of Christ, named him David, and David their king : by a common metonomy giving the name of the type to the person typified. See Jer. xxx. 9;  Ezek. xxxiv. 23;  xxxvii. 24;  Hosea iii. 4, 5; and Isa. lv. 3.  Acts xiii. 34, particularly the last mentioned passage, where the benefits which the spiritual seed derive from the government of Christ, and in particular their safety from their enemies, are termed, The sure mercies of David.

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