539 BCE to 632 CE: The Story

In 539 BCE, Cyrus, the Persian emperor, arrived in Babylon, effectively inheriting the vast Babylonian empire including Palestine. Rather than employing the policies of conquest and exile like their Babylonian and Assyrian predecessors, the Persian emperors viewed themselves as liberators and restorers, and encouraged exiled peoples to return to their native lands and rebuild their religious and cultural institutions.Model of the Second Temple

Many of the exiled Jews in Babylon took advantage of this new policy.  Under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah, several waves of Jews headed towards their ancestral homeland, in the former territory of the Kingdom of Judah. They gained autonomy and were eventually permitted to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.


Persian rule was nonetheless more amicable than the rule of the Greek and Roman empires that followed.  In 332 BCE, Alexander the Great extended his empire into Judea (the Greek and Latin term for Judah), but within a decade, Alexander was dead, and his empire dissolved into competing factions.



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