Return from Exile

Biblical Text and Content

The people of Judah who had been carried off in the Babylonian exile returned to Jerusalem after the Persian king Cyrus issued his decree. These events are recorded chiefly in Ezra and Nehemiah. Second Chronicles ends with an account of this decree (2 Chronicles 36:22-23). The return did not happen all at once but took place in several stages.

• The first return: The decree was issued "in the first year of Cyrus" (Ezra 1:1-4). Afterward, Zerubbabel and Jeshua the high priest led a company back. Ezra 2:64 gives the total as 42,360: "The whole congregation together was forty and two thousand three hundred and threescore." The returnees built an altar and laid the foundation of the temple, but the work came to a halt in the face of opposition. Encouraged by Haggai and Zechariah, they resumed construction and completed the temple in the sixth year of King Darius (Ezra 6:15). This is covered in detail in the article Rebuilding of the Temple.
• Ezra's return: In the seventh year of King Artaxerxes, Ezra, a scribe and priest, returned to teach the law (Ezra 7:7).
• Nehemiah's return: In the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, Nehemiah returned (Nehemiah 2:1). He rebuilt the ruined city wall in fifty-two days (Nehemiah 6:15).

Background

Cyrus conquered Babylon in 539 B.C., and the decree is generally dated to about the following year. Cyrus's policy of sending conquered peoples back to their homelands and temples can also be glimpsed in an artifact known as the Cyrus Cylinder, although the cylinder does not mention the Judeans directly. Scholars differ on the precise dates of Ezra and Nehemiah and on the order in which the two men carried out their work. Many Judeans did not return but remained in Persian lands, and the story of Esther is set among them.

Significance in the Whole of Scripture

Jeremiah proclaimed God's promise that when seventy years were accomplished in Babylon, He would bring the people back (Jeremiah 25:11-12; Jeremiah 29:4-14). Daniel read this word and prayed (Daniel 9:1-3). Isaiah calls Cyrus God's "shepherd" and His "anointed" (Isaiah 44:28; 45:1), and he portrays the return as a new Exodus (Isaiah 43:16-21). Scripture presents the return as evidence of God's faithfulness in keeping His covenant and as the restoration of the remnant.

The New Testament carries this theme forward. The genealogy in Matthew 1:11-17 treats the Babylonian exile as a major turning point in history. Isaiah 40:3, which celebrates the return—"The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD"—is applied to John the Baptist (Matthew 3:3). First Peter 1:1 and James 1:1 address believers as scattered strangers and as the twelve tribes.

Interpretation and Points of Debate

• The scope of prophetic fulfillment: The covenant theology tradition tends to see the restoration prophecies as partially fulfilled in the return and brought to completion in Christ and the church. Dispensationalism holds that restoration prophecies such as Ezekiel 37 will yet be fulfilled more fully and literally for the nation of Israel, and some therefore interpret the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 within this framework.
• Calculating the seventy years: Some reckon the period from the first deportation (c. 605 B.C.) to the return, while others reckon it from the destruction of the temple to its rebuilding.
• Distinguishing the text from later additions: It is often said that all the exiles returned, but Scripture indicates that only a portion came back. The text also does not state whether Sheshbazzar, who received the temple vessels at the time of the first return (Ezra 1:8), is the same person as Zerubbabel.

In the Korean Church

Psalm 126:5, "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy," is frequently quoted in Thanksgiving sermons and in sermons on evangelism and missions. Nehemiah's rebuilding of the wall and Haggai's exhortation to build the temple (Haggai 2:4-5) are widely used as sermon texts on church building and on leadership. On Liberation Day Sunday, Psalm 126 is sometimes read, likening the joy of Korea's liberation to the joy of the return from exile.