Fall of Babylon in the context of "Gobryas (general)"

The Second Temple period or post-exilic period in Jewish history denotes the approximately 600 years (516 BCE – 70 CE) during which the Second Temple stood in the city of Jerusalem. It began with the return to Zion after the Babylonian captivity and the subsequent reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, and ended with the First Jewish–Roman War and the Roman siege of Jerusalem.

In 587/586 BCE, the Neo-Babylonian Empire conquered the Kingdom of Judah; the Judeans lost their independence upon the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem, during which the First Temple was destroyed. After the Babylonians annexed Judah as a province, part of the subjugated populace was exiled to Babylon. This exilic period lasted for nearly five decades, ending after the Neo-Babylonian Empire itself was conquered by the Achaemenid Persian Empire, which annexed Babylonian territorial possessions after the fall of Babylon. Soon after the conquest, Persian king Cyrus the Great issued a proclamation known as the Edict of Cyrus, encouraging the exiles to return to their homeland after the Persians raised it as an autonomous Jewish-governed province. Under the Persians (c. 539–332 BCE), the returned Jewish population restored the city and rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem. In 332 BCE, the Achaemenid Empire fell to Alexander the Great, and the region was later incorporated into the Ptolemaic Kingdom (c. 301–200 BCE) and the Seleucid Empire (c. 200–167 BCE).

The Jewish diaspora (Hebrew: גוֹלָה gōlā), alternatively the dispersion (תְּפוּצָה təfūṣā) or the exile (גָּלוּת gālūṯ; Yiddish: גלות gōləs), consists of Jews who reside outside of the Land of Israel. Historically, it refers to the expansive scattering of the Israelites out of their homeland in the Southern Levant and their subsequent settlement in other parts of the world, which gave rise to the various Jewish communities.

In the Hebrew Bible, the term gālūṯ (lit. 'exile') denotes the fate of the Twelve Tribes of Israel over the course of two major exilic events in ancient Israel and Judah: the Assyrian captivity, which occurred after the Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the 8th century BCE; and the Babylonian captivity, which occurred after the Kingdom of Judah was conquered by the Neo-Babylonian Empire in the 6th century BCE. While those who were taken from Israel dispersed as the Ten Lost Tribes, those who were taken from Judah—consisting of the Tribe of Judah and the Tribe of Benjamin—became known by the identity "Jew" (יְהוּדִי Yehūdī, lit. 'of Judah') and were repatriated following the Persian conquest of Babylonia.

The Chaldean dynasty, also known as the Neo-Babylonian dynasty and enumerated as Dynasty X of Babylon, was the ruling dynasty of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling as kings of Babylon from the ascent of Nabopolassar in 626 BC to the fall of Babylon in 539 BC. The dynasty, as connected to Nabopolassar through descent, was deposed in 560 BC by the Aramean official Neriglissar (r. 560–556 BC), though he was connected to the Chaldean kings through marriage and his son and successor, Labashi-Marduk (r. 556 BC), might have reintroduced the bloodline to the throne. The final Neo-Babylonian king, Nabonidus (r. 556–539 BC), was genealogically unconnected to the previous kings, but might, like Neriglissar, also have been connected to the dynasty through marriage.

Nabuna'eed (Neo-Babylonian Akkadian: 𒀭𒀝𒈾𒀪𒀉, romanized: Nabû-naʾid, Hellenized as Nabonidus meaning "May Nabu be exalted" or "Nabu is praised") was the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from 556 BC to the fall of Babylon to the Achaemenian Empire under Cyrus the Great in 539 BC. Nabonidus was the last native ruler of ancient Mesopotamia, the end of his reign marking the end of thousands of years of Sumero-Akkadian states, kingdoms and empires. He was also the last independent king of Babylon. Regarded as one of the most vibrant and individualistic rulers of his time, Nabonidus is characterised by some scholars as an unorthodox religious reformer and as the first archaeologist.

The origins of Nabonidus, his connection to previous royalty, and subsequently what claim he had to the throne remain unclear, given that Nabonidus made no genealogical claims of kinship to previous kings. This suggests that he was neither related nor connected to the Chaldean dynasty of Babylonian rulers. However, he is known to have had a prominent career of some kind before he became king. It is possible that he was connected to the Chaldean kings via marriage, possibly having married a daughter of Nebuchadnezzar II (r. 605–562 BC). Nabonidus's mother, Adad-guppi, was of Assyrian ancestry. His father, Nabu-balatsu-iqbi, of whom little is known, may also have been either Assyrian or Babylonian. Some historians have speculated that either Adad-guppi or Nabu-balatsu-iqbi were members of the Sargonid dynasty, rulers of the Neo-Assyrian Empire until its fall in 609 BC.

The Israelites, also known as the Children of Israel, were an ancient Semitic-speaking people who emerged in Canaan during the Iron Age. They were a Hebrew people that spoke an archaic Hebrew language commonly called Biblical Hebrew through association with the Hebrew Bible. In biblical myth, the population was divided into the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The group went on to form the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah.

Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanite populations and other peoples of the ancient Near East. The Israelite religion revolved around Yahweh, who was an ancient Semitic god with less significance in the broader Canaanite religion. Around 720 BCE, the Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire, triggering the Assyrian captivity; and around 586 BCE, the Kingdom of Judah was conquered by the Neo-Babylonian Empire, triggering the Babylonian captivity. While most of Israel's population was irreversibly dispossessed as a result of Assyrian resettlement policy, Judah's population was rehabilitated by the Achaemenid Empire following the fall of Babylon in 539 BCE.

The Second Temple (Hebrew: בֵּית־הַמִּקְדָּשׁ‎ הַשֵּׁנִי‎, romanized: Bēṯ hamMīqdāš hašŠēnī, lit. 'Second House of the Sanctum') was the temple in Jerusalem that replaced Solomon's Temple, which was destroyed during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. It was constructed around 516 BCE and later enhanced by Herod the Great around 18 BCE, consequently also being known as Herod's Temple thereafter. Defining the Second Temple period and standing as a pivotal symbol of Jewish identity, it was the basis and namesake of Second Temple Judaism. The Second Temple served as the chief place of worship, ritual sacrifice (korban), and communal gathering for the Jewish people, among whom it regularly attracted pilgrims for the Three Pilgrimage Festivals: Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot.

In 539 BCE, the Persian conquest of Babylon enabled the Achaemenid Empire to expand across the Fertile Crescent by annexing the Neo-Babylonian Empire, including the territory of the former Kingdom of Judah, which had been annexed as the Babylonian province of Yehud during the reign of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II, who concurrently exiled part of Judah's population to Babylon. Following this campaign, the Persian king Cyrus the Great issued the "Edict of Cyrus" (sometimes identified with the Cyrus Cylinder), which is described in the Hebrew Bible as a royal proclamation that authorized and encouraged the repatriation of displaced populations in the region. This event is called the return to Zion in Ezra–Nehemiah, marking the resurgence of Jewish life in what had become the self-governing Persian province of Yehud. The reign of the Persian king Darius the Great saw the completion of the Second Temple, signifying a period of renewed Jewish hope and religious revival. According to the biblical account, the Second Temple was originally a relatively modest structure built under the authority of the Persian-appointed Jewish governor Zerubbabel, who was the grandson of the penultimate Judahite king Jeconiah.

The return to Zion (Hebrew: שִׁיבָת צִיּוֹן or שבי ציון, Shivat Tzion or Shavei Tzion, lit. 'Zion returnees') is an event recorded in Ezra–Nehemiah of the Hebrew Bible, in which the Jews of the Kingdom of Judah—subjugated by the Neo-Babylonian Empire—were freed from the Babylonian captivity following the Persian conquest of Babylon. In 539 BCE, the Persian king Cyrus the Great issued the Edict of Cyrus allowing the Jews to return to Jerusalem and the Land of Judah, which was made a self-governing Jewish province under the new Persian Empire.

The Persian period marks the onset of the Second Temple period in Jewish history. Zerubabel, appointed as governor of Judah by the Persian king, oversaw the construction of the Second Temple. Later, prominent leaders like Nehemiah and Ezra emerged. Nehemiah's activities dated to the third quarter of the fifth century BCE, while the precise period of Ezra's activity remains a subject of debate. Their efforts to rebuild the social and spiritual life of the Jewish returnees in their ancestral homeland are chronicled in the biblical books named after them. These texts also document the interactions of the Jews with neighboring figures, including Sanballat the Horonite, likely the governor of Samaria, Tobiah the Ammonite, who likely owned lands in Ammon, and Geshem the Arabian, king of the Qedarites, all of whom opposed Nehemiah's efforts to rebuild Jerusalem.