figures of other words, sentences, narratives, and images—and finally of divine truths themselves—through their variegated use and linkages. The lexical range of “figural reading” overlaps with that of terms such as typology (where one event or person prophetically pre-figures a later event or person) and allegory (a looser mode of theological reference) and thus occupies a place within broadly conceived categories such as spiritual interpretation or theological interpretation. Because of its interest