Yeshaya: How Rashi Carefully Avoids The Suggestion of God's Corporeality

I chance-encountered the following gemara in Sanhedrin 95b - 96a, a gemara that suggests belief in a corporeal God, or at least a God that can and does assume human form at will. The pasuk upon which it is all based is Yeshayahu 7:20:

כ בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא יְגַלַּח אֲדֹנָי בְּתַעַר הַשְּׂכִירָה בְּעֶבְרֵי נָהָר, בְּמֶלֶךְ אַשּׁוּר, אֶת-הָרֹאשׁ, וְשַׂעַר הָרַגְלָיִם; וְגַם אֶת-הַזָּקָן, תִּסְפֶּה. {פ

20 In that day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired in the parts beyond the River, even with the king of Assyria, the head and the hair of the feet; and it shall also sweep away the beard. {P}

The gemara:

R. Abbahu said: Were not the [following] verse written, it would have been impossible to conceive of it: viz., In the same day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired, namely, by the riverside, by the king of Assyria, the head, and the hair of the feet: and it shall consume the beard. The Holy one, blessed be He, went and appeared before him [Sennacherib] as an old man, and said to him, 'When thou goest to the kings of the east and the west, whose sons thou didst lead [to battle] and cause their death, what wilt thou say to them?' He {Sancheriv} replied, 'I too entertain that fear. What then shall I do?' asked he. 'Go,' He replied, 'and disguise thyself'. 'How shall I disguise myself?' 'Bring me a razor, and I myself will shave thee'. He answered. 'Whence shall I procure it?' 'Enter that house and take it', He rejoined. So he went and found it there. But the Ministering angels appeared to him in the shape of men grinding palm kernels. 'Give me the razor,' said he. 'Grind a griwah of palm kernels,' they replied, 'and we will give it thee'. So he ground a griwah of palm kernels, and they gave him the razor. By the time he returned, it had become dark. 'Go and bring some fire', He ordered. So he went and brought fire. Whilst he was blowing it [into a blaze], it caught hold of his beard, whereupon He shaved off the hair of his head together with his beard. They [sc.' the scholars] said: That is what is meant by the phrase, and it shall also consume the beard. R. Papa said: Thus men say, If thou art singeing [the hair of] an Aramean, and he is pleased therewith, set light to his beard; so wilt thou not suffer his mockery. He then went away and found a plank of Noah's ark. 'This', said he, 'must be the great God who saved Noah from the flood. If I go [to battle] and am successful, I will sacrifice my two sons to thee', he vowed. But his sons heard this, so they killed him, as it is written, And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword etc.

There are several ways one can take a gemara like this. Three such approaches:
1) One can say that it was meant literally and therefore we have to believe it to be literal and true.
2) Perhaps one can say that it was meant literally, but we do not have to agree with every aggadic explanation of pesukim.
3) We can say that it was intended allegorically and we are obligated to understand it allegorically. For obviously it couldn't have been intended literally!

This is clearly the type of the gemara Rambam talks about in his introduction to this very perek, perek Chelek, when he speaks of some midrashim being intended allegorically, and only fools cite it literally (and then either adopt or dismiss it).

Yet, one aspect points to it being intended literally. Rabbi Abahu said: "Were not the [following] verse written, it would have been impossible to conceive of it." He says this before leading off into the midrash. We could say that the entire thing is allegorical, and even such an allegory would be impossible to conceive of."

Yet, the pasuk itself, when not given over to midrashic interpretation, seems obviously metaphorical. Thus in:

כ בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא יְגַלַּח אֲדֹנָי בְּתַעַר הַשְּׂכִירָה בְּעֶבְרֵי נָהָר, בְּמֶלֶךְ אַשּׁוּר, אֶת-הָרֹאשׁ, וְשַׂעַר הָרַגְלָיִם; וְגַם אֶת-הַזָּקָן, תִּסְפֶּה. {פ

20 In that day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired in the parts beyond the River, even with the king of Assyria, the head and the hair of the feet; and it shall also sweep away the beard. {P}

this is a way of connoting destruction to the rulers, armies, and nation of Assyria. We often encounter such metaphorical language.

But the midrash takes it beyond that, giving a back-story to how Hashem shaves Sancheriv's head and beard. It certainly appears to be consciously taking it literally, and that would be the point of the midrash. And indeed this is bolstered, as I mentioned before, by Rabbi Abahu's preface.

How does Rashi take it? Rashi writes:

the Lord shall shave with the great razor Heb. (שְּׂכִירָה) , comp. (Jer. 46:21) “Also its officers (שְׂכִירֶיהָ) in its midst,” which Jonathan renders: its great ones.
on the other side of the river Of those who dwell on the other side of the river, and of which of those dwellers? The king of Assyria, the head He will shave and the hair of the legs. Since it is in the construct state, it is voweled with a ‘pattach,’ (שַׂעַר) instead of (שֵׂעָר).
shall be entirely removed Will be destroyed. The shaving is the slaying, and the razor is the sword.
the head This symbolizes the king.
the legs [This symbolizes] his camps [from Jonathan].
the beard [This symbolizes] the governors [from Jonathan]. But our Rabbis said that this literally refers to shaving, and the removal of the beard is by singeing it with fire. “The beard” refers to the beard of Sennacherib, as is found in the Aggadah of the chapter entitled, ‘Chelek.’

Thus, he agrees that on a peshat level, the verse is metaphorical. And he gives that as the primary explanation. Still, he is "arguing" with an interpretation given by Chazal, and feels it necessary to make note, at least, of Chazal's explanation (and perhaps agrees with it on a midrashic level). (Thus, we see, BTW, how midrash can be literal and peshat can be figurative.)

But he also seems to be careful in his citation of perek Chelek. He says that Chazal say the shaving is meant literally (and if they mean it literally, how can they mean it literally in an allegorical fashion), but he provides no more information, nor any explicit statement that this involves corporeality of God.

Interesting.