FIGURE, the rendering of two Heb. and three Gr. terms. The Heb. סֶ֫מֶל, H6166, “image” or “idol” is a rare term appearing only in Deuteronomy 4:16; 2 Chronicles 33:7, 15; Ezekiel 8:3, 5. The KJV reads “figure” only in Deuteronomy 4:16; it reads “image” elsewhere. The word has no clear etymology, but a similar root does appear in Phoen. The other term is תַּבְנִית, H9322, “configuration,” “form,” or “likeness,” used widely but not frequently throughout the OT. It is variously tr. (Exod 25:9, 40) and other passages are rendered “pattern” while only Isaiah 44:13 is read “figure” (in RSV) and elsewhere. The word was applied to any type of engraved, carved or drawn image. It is probable that “image” is the best tr. The NT term most commonly employed is Gr. τύπος, G5596, a difficult term used from early Attic times in a number of contexts and varieties of meaning: “mark,” “trace of,” “copy,” “anything formed,” “figure,” “pattern,” “archetype,” “example,” and even a “symbol.” Almost all of these connotations are found in the NT. It is this term which is employed frequently in the LXX to represent the Heb. terms above. The term appears in the gospels only in John 20:25; “the print of the nails” which Thomas required as the ultimate proof for his belief. In the epistles it is used in the sense of “pattern” or “example” of moral conduct (1 Tim 4:12) and as “pattern” or “method of instruction” (Rom 6:17). The most important and characteristic usage is in the sense of an event or personage who fulfills a prop hetic prefigurement. Such a connotation is involved in Romans 5:14, et al. The Eng. cognate “type” often has been used to tr. this usage. Another Gr. term παραβολή, G4130, is used frequently in the gospels to indicate the form of Jesus’ characteristic teaching. It appears also in Hebrews 9:9; 11:19 and is variously tr. by the VSS. The KJV renders it “figure.” The notion of “pattern” is not foremost, but the word seems to indicate a fully completed exemplar, a prophetic paradigm. One other term is rendered “figure,” but only in Hebrews 9:24. Elsewhere it is tr. “like figure” (1 Pet 3:21). It is a compound of typos, Gr. ἀντίτυπος, G531. Such terms are exceedingly difficult and come to be almost primarily Christian in usage. From such involved formulations of the prophetic prefigurement and the fulfilling reality, the whole elaborate system of hermeneutics known as “typology” was developed.

Although the roots of such fig. views were developed in the later Platonic academy, they grew and flourished in the Medieval period. The complex exegesis of the Roman Church sought for manifold levels of meaning in the text of the Scriptures. The “types” of Christ, Mary and the various OT and NT are shown in church art and celebrated in hymns. This interpretation survived the Reformation and appealed to pietist and romanticist alike, and so they have become part of the inheritance of various groups in the modern age. In recent decades types have been less frequent in Biblical studies.