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Historical Period

The return from exile, the rebuilt Temple, and the making of Judaism.

Use the timeline below to navigate through major events and milestones.

Return & the Second Temple · 538-332 BC
The Ancient Levant

The Return & the Second Temple

Under the tolerant rule of Persia, exiles returned to Jerusalem, rebuilt the Temple, and restored the walls. Ezra brought back the Law and Nehemiah the walls, and around the Torah a people scattered by conquest remade itself — becoming, in these quiet centuries, recognizably Jewish. Slide across the age of the Second Temple's beginnings under the Great Kings.

538 BC
The Return
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538 BC

The Return
  • Political

    The return to Zion

    The first exiles journey home from Babylon to a ruined Jerusalem to rebuild their community.

9 milestones

Meanwhile

Around 538 BC

Full Chronicle

The Return & the Second Temple

Under the tolerant rule of Persia, exiles returned to Jerusalem, rebuilt the Temple, and restored the walls. Ezra brought back the Law and Nehemiah the walls, and around the Torah a people scattered by conquest remade itself — becoming, in these quiet centuries, recognizably Jewish. Slide across the age of the Second Temple's beginnings under the Great Kings.

  1. The Return

    • The return to Zion

      The first exiles journey home from Babylon to a ruined Jerusalem to rebuild their community.

  2. The Return

    • The Second Temple rebuilt

      Urged on by the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, the returnees complete a new Temple in Jerusalem.

  3. Persian Yehud

    • Ezra and the Law

      The scribe Ezra returns from Babylon with the Law and reads it aloud to the whole people.

  4. Persian Yehud

    • Nehemiah rebuilds the walls

      Nehemiah, a Jewish official at the Persian court, is sent to govern Judah and rebuild Jerusalem's walls.

  5. Persian Yehud

    • The making of Judaism

      Around the Temple and the Torah, the returned community takes on the shape of the Jewish faith.

  6. Persian Yehud

    • The Samaritans

      The people of Samaria, worshippers of the same God, drift apart from the Jews of Jerusalem.

  7. The Diaspora

    • The Jews of Elephantine

      Papyri reveal a Jewish military colony in far-off Egypt with its own temple on the Nile.

  8. Persian Yehud

    • The temple-state of Yehud

      Judah settles into a small, self-governing temple province led by its high priest under Persian oversight.

  9. Macedonian Conquest

    • Alexander ends Persian rule

      Alexander the Great passes through the Levant, and Judea enters the Greek world.