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Hebrews allowed to return from babylonia map11/13/2023 A gap of more than fifty years followed until the time of Ezra’s return to the land in 458 BC, with a religious commission to teach the Law (Ezra 7–10). In Ezra 1–6, we learn of the first wave of returnees under the leadership of Zerubbabel and Jeshua, of the first attempts to rebuild the temple, of local opposition to that rebuilding, and of the eventual completion of the temple, over a twenty-five year period (539–515 BC). The books of Ezra and Nehemiah tell the story of the restoration of God’s people after the exile. When the time came, Cyrus indeed was God’s instrument, issuing a remarkable decree, freeing the Jews to return to their land (2 Chron. 29:10), and that He would use Cyrus as His anointed instrument (Isa. God in His grace had promised His people that He would certainly bring them back (Jer. This was to be a genuine and heart-felt repentance, like had not been seen among God’s people in many generations. God answered them that the key to their survival was repentance - turning their backs on sin (vv. So, the Israelites in exile cried out to God with a renewed awareness of their sin: “Surely our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we rot away because of them. The prophets had repeatedly warned of this (see Mic. God had warned the nation from the very beginning that their continued tenure in the land depended on their obedience if they were not faithful, God would remove them from it (Deut. This did not come upon God’s people unawares. Now, seemingly, all was lost: their land, their holy city, their temple and all its trappings, their elaborate sacrificial system and its priesthood, their king - everything. 13:15 17:8 48:4), and David a royal descendent on the throne in Jerusalem in perpetuity (2 Sam. This was a spiritual crisis, as well as a political one, because God had promised Abraham and his descendants the land in perpetuity (see Gen. The impact of Jerusalem’s destruction is described in excruciating detail three separate times in Scripture: 2 Kings 25 2 Chronicles 36 and Jeremiah 52. ![]() How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” (vv. On the willows there we hung up our lyres…. Psalm 137 captures some of the Israelites’ anguish: “By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. The great promises that God had made to David - about a kingdom centered in Jerusalem - seemed far away, even broken (see Psalm 89:19, 38–40). Abraham’s descendants now lived exiled in a hostile land. Now it lay “uncovered” (this is the basic meaning of the word exile), its cities and its people brutalized. ![]() This was the land that God had promised centuries earlier to Abraham, and where his descendants had lived for more than eight hundred years. When the Babylonian army under Nebuchadnezzar finished its work in destroying Jerusalem and carrying off the cream of its citizenry into exile in 586 BC, God’s people faced their greatest crisis ever, both politically and spiritually.
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