The second type of typology is historic in nature. There are certain patterns of activity that God likes to work in the through. These patterns occur and reoccur again and again across the pages of Scripture — and perhaps in other events. In Scripture, we can trace these patterns back to God clearly and with little doubt because He chose to reveal Himself through His activity in and through the events recorded and interpreted in and by Scripture. God is the redeemer who oversees the first Exodus in the Book of Exodus. This “exodus type” is not prophetic in its own right. There are not indications that the Exodus narrative is predicting something about the future. As God reveals more of Himself and His activity in history, it becomes clearer that the “exodus type” is something God likes to use. We find, then, Israel’s later return from captivity in Babylon being interpreted by the Prophets as another Exodus albeit far less spectacular than the first. Luke records in Lk. 9:31 that Jesus was leading a new exodus as well. The first Exodus in the Book of Exodus is just an event, but later revelation by God shows that this historic event was setting a fountain of God’s preferential activity in history. Thus, the NT author Luke can use the Exodus, not as a prophecy in its own right, but as an indication of the same God who led Israel for 40 years in the wilderness who was now leading humanity in the Son of God Jesus.

B. T. Scalise