When I had said this I added: Learn also that He whom the Scriptures show as about to come again in glory after being crucified had the type of the tree of life, which it was said was planted in paradise, and also of the events that are to happen to all the righteous. Moses was sent with a rod for the release of the people, and holding this in his hands at the head of the people he divided the sea, and by means of this he saw water springing from the rock. And by casting a tree into the water at Marah, when it was bitter, he made it sweet.
By casting rods into the water-troughs Jacob succeeded in his uncle’s sheep conceiving, that he might gain possession of their offspring. With his rod the same Jacob boasts that he has crossed the river. He said that a ladder had been seen of him, and the Scripture has shown that God was stationed on it, and we have already proved from the Scriptures that it was not the Father. And when Jacob had poured oil over a stone in the same place, witness was borne to him by God himself who appeared to him, that he had anointed a pillar to the God who appeared to him.
And that Christ was proclaimed in figure as a Stone by many passages of Scripture have we likewise proved. And that every form of anointing, whether of oil or of myrrh, referred to Him, have we likewise proved. For the Scripture says: Therefore God, thy God, anointed thee with oil of gladness more than thy companions. For also all the kings and other anointed persons had their privilege from Him of being called kings and Christ; in the same way that He Himself received from the Father that of being King and Christ and Priest and Angel, and all else that He has or had.
The rod of Aaron by bearing buds proved him to be priest. That the Christ would come as a rod from the root of Jesse did Isaiah prophesy. And David says that the righteous is as the tree planted by the water-courses, which is to bear its fruit in its season, and its leaf is not to fall. And the righteous is said to be about to flourish as a palm.
From a tree did God appear to Abraham, as it is written, by the oak of Mamre. Seventy willows and twelve fountains did the people find when they had crossed the Jordan. With rod and staff does David say he has been comforted by God.Psalms 23:4
By casting a rod into the river Jordan Elisha brought the iron axehead up, with which the sons of the prophets had gone to cut trees to build the house, in which they purposed to recite the Law and the ordinances of God, and to meditate upon them; as also Christ redeemed us who have been baptized, from those most grievous sins which we had committed, by his being crucified on the tree and sanctifying us by water, and made us a house of prayer and worship. And it was a rod which marked out Judah as the father of them who, in mysterious type, were born of Tamar.