The typologizing of prophetic oracles

I now come to the penultimate post on the different ways in which Israelite prophecy was rendered as Scripture for the community of faith. For the other six, go to my post Canonical shaping of the prophets. This is taken from Childs' article, "The Canonical Shape of the Prophetic Literature," 1995.

Oracles which originally functioned in a variety of historical settings have been arranged into set patterns which serve a new typological role in relation to the coming rule of God. The clearest examples of a patterning schema are the alternative blocks of oracles of judgment and salvation in the Books of Isaiah (compare 1:1-31; 2:6-22; 3:1-26, with 2:1-5; 4:2-6) and Micah (cf. chaps. 1, 2, 6 with 2:12f.; 4 and 5). The effect of this move is that a typological sequence subordinates the original historical one and refocuses the material on the dominant theological purposes undergirding all prophetic proclamation.