Jesus heavily quotes from the Old Testament throughout the gospels. His reference to Old Testament scripture and prophecies would always reflect the true intended thrust of those scriptures, even if the contemporary view of those same scriptures was incorrect.

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In fact, when Jesus alludes to Gehenna, he often combines two separate apocalyptic prophecies from the Old Testament.  He actually mixes these two prophecies of total and massive destruction of wicked men, in several instances where he uses the word Gehenna.  Gehenna itself is a direct reference to one of these dreadful prophecies of death and destruction.  The other reference which is mixed in with several of the Gehenna verses incorporates terminology directly from the last chapter of the prophetic book, Isaiah.

 

Even if we are clueless about what Jesus is talking about in our contemporary times, Jesus was very intentional when he pulled two very graphic prophecies about death, judgement and slaughter from the Old Testament. He knew exactly what he was doing.  He was not creating and interjecting some new concept on the fly. 

 

When Jesus used these two prophecies together, he intended to point to the ultimate day of judgement, which will involve massive slaughter, death and destruction.  Neither of these prophecies from the Old Testament depict long term suffering or eternal torment.  Rather, they clearly depict massive slaughter, with countless dead corpses...