The angels are likewise incorporeal: they are intelligences (‘aqool’ عقول) without matter, but they are nevertheless created beings…

Maimonides takes the unequivocal position that all references to angels in the Bible are to be interpreted allegorically; there are no actual beings with wings. How, exactly, does he then make sense of the passages in the Torah which refer to angels? The answer is, once again, the idea that ‘the Torah speaks in the language of man’; i.e., “[it is] difficult … for men to form a notion of anything immaterial, and entirely devoid of corporeality”; therefore, the Bible speaks of angels, e.g., taking on human form and appearing to prophets. It endows angels with a form because for most people, it is difficult to conceive of entities that have no form; most people need the help of the imagination in order to form ideas about things.

The goal, according to Maimonides, is simply to lead people to the belief “that angels exist, are alive and perfect”. The reason why the Bible did not simply say so is that such ideas are liable to be misinterpreted by common people to mean that “their [angels’] true essence [is] the same as the essence of God”. According to Maimonides, there are subtle differences in the kind of (metaphorical) corporeality that is attributed in scripture to angels and the kind of corporeality that is attributed to God, “thereby show[ing] that the existence of God is more perfect than that of angels, as much as man is more perfect than the lower animals.”