Yahweh's Embodied Appearances Before the Incarnation

Long before Bethlehem, the Old Testament has God turning up in a body.
Three men come to Abraham, and one of them is Yahweh - Abraham addresses him as the Judge of all the earth. At Shiloh, the Lord comes and stands there to call Samuel, and the chapter closes by saying Yahweh appeared again in Shiloh. Not a voice from nowhere. An appearance.
This is the pattern behind what later Jewish writers called two powers: the invisible, transcendent Yahweh, and a visible Yahweh who can be seen, addressed and argued with.
One caution. Do not press the meal in Genesis 18 into a proof that God ate; the sources warn against that reading. The claim rests on the encounter, not the menu.
Scripture links:
- Genesis 18:1-5 and 18:25 - three visitors, one of whom Abraham addresses as the Judge of all the earth.
- 1 Samuel 3:10 and 3:21 - the Lord came and stood, and Yahweh appeared again in Shiloh.
The incarnation was not God's first visit. It was the permanent one.