A Cannibal Feast in Ezekiel

Abstract

This article proposes that although Ezekiel's dramatic usage of corpse desecration imagery has long been recognized, one aspect of that motif, namely necrophagia, has not thus far been amply appreciated. Throughout chs. 11, 24, and 34, Ezekiel employs imagery of a zebaḥ sacrificial feast gone awry to relay the concern, implicit in chs. 11 and 24 and explicit in ch. 34, that the people of Israel have been metaphorically cannibalized by their unjust rulers. This widely unrecognized element of necrophagia, this article maintains, plays into Ezekiel's corpse desecration motif to highlight the similar fates of Jerusalem and Gog, while creating a stark contrast with the final outcome of the Babylonian exiles.