For decades the organisation's publications identified individual Bible characters as prophetic pictures of modern classes of Witnesses — for example Rahab as a picture of the great crowd.

“This “great crowd” was anciently pictured by the Canaanite woman named Rahab in the days of Joshua, the successor of Moses.”

“Many years ago, our publications stated that such faithful men and women as Deborah, Elihu, Jephthah, Job, Rahab, and Rebekah, as well as many others, were really types, or shadows, of either the anointed or the “great crowd.” … The clearest course is this: Where the Scriptures teach that an individual, an event, or an object is typical of something else, we accept it as such. Otherwise, we ought to be reluctant to assign an antitypical application to a certain person or account if there is no specific Scriptural basis for doing so.”