It’s hard to imagine a more succinct or accurate description of typology than that of Danielou ( Bible and the Liturgy ): “That the realities of the Old Testament are figures of those of the New is one of the principles of biblical theology. This science of the similitudes between the two Testaments is called typology . And here we would do well to remind ourselves of its foundation, for this is to be found in the Old Testament itself. At the time of the Captivity, the prophets announced to the people of Israel that in the future God would perform for their benefit deeds analogous to, and even greater than those He had performed in the past. So there would be a new Deluge, in which the sinful world would be annihilated, and a few men, a ‘remnant,’ would be preserved to inaugurate a new humanity; there would be a new Exodus in which, by His power, God would set mankind free from its bondage to idols; there would be a new Paradise into which God would introduce the people He had redeemed. These prophecies constitute a primary typology that might be called eschatological, for the prophets saw these future events as happening at the end of time. The New Testament, therefore, did not invent typology, but simply showed that it was fulfilled in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.”

In sum: Events of the past form hopes for the future. Hope is hope that God will do again what He has done, and will do it definitively. Those hopes are realized in Jesus.

From here, there’s nothing to do but tolle lege .