Yehezkel’s Prophecy regarding Gog and Magog

The corpses of the armies of Gog defile the land and must be buried in order to purify the land. However, the valley in which they are buried alludes to the valley of Ben Hinom, the valley in which children were sacrificed to Molekh. Thus, on a deeper level the prophet is hinting that the passing of children through fire - which had been common in the land - is what truly caused the land’s defilement. In addition to purifying the land from the casualties of war, this ceremony also purifies the land from the sins of the past.

Although burying the dead bodies can stop those bodies from causing impurity, the burials cannot stop the graves from becoming a pilgrimage site. In these verses, the dead themselves become flesh for consumption. Those who consume them – the birds and the beast of the field – could have been sacrificed as offerings to the dead, while here the situation is reversed: they themselves eat the flesh and drink the blood of God’s enemies, thus ensuring that the graves do not become places of worship.

Whereas in Yirmiyahu’s prophecy of destruction, the flesh of the sinners from the nation of Israel is eaten by the birds and the beasts of the field, in Yehezkel’s prophecy of revival it is God’s enemies who succumb to this fate.