The name of Jesus was given to three persons in the Old Testaments as a prefiguring of Christ Our Lord. First there was Joshua who, after the death of Moses, led the Israelites into the promised land. Joshua in Hebrew is the same name as Jesus and it means “”savior”. As a leader of the chosen people Joshua prefigured Our Lord as King. And just as His namesake led the holy people into the land of promise, so does Jesus the Divine King, the Savior of the world, lead the holy people into the eternal Promised Land. Then there was Jesus, the high priest, who served in that office during the rebuilding of the temple under King Zorobabel after the return from the Babylonian captivity (536 B.C.). This Jesus prefigured our Lord as Priest. Finally there was the brilliant sacred writer, Jesus, son of Sirach, who wrote the Book of Ecclesiasticus, one of the seven wisdom books of the Bible. He lived around the year 200 B.C. This inspired teacher prefigured Our Lord as Prophet.
