Razor from Assyria

My colleague Chris Schlect suggested an interesting take on Yahweh’s threat to shave the beard from Judah, using the rented razor of Assyria (Isaiah 7:20). In Assyria, beardless men were eunuchs. Assyria will not only take men from Judah to be slaves, but will castrate them.

That makes senses of the strange threat to “shave the feet” in the same verse. From one angle, the verse is a merism, threatening a “head to toe” shave. In Scripture, though, “feet” is often a euphemism for sexual organs. Yahweh threatens to complete the circumcision of His circumcised people.

And this in turn might shed some light on Paul’s crude wish that the Judaizers were “go all the way” and mutilate themselves (Galatians 5:12). He is wishing exile on them; the curse is that another “Assyria” will come as a razor to shave the feet of unbelieving Israel.