It is difficult to assess how Jewish society as a whole responded to this new reality. Did the isolated geographical circumstances of Jews (who lived primarily in the more remote hill country of Judea), combined with ethnic and religious differences, create a buffer between them and the outside world? Or were Jews affected by these changes in the same ways as were their pagan counterparts in the coastal cities, albeit at a somewhat slower pace? Unfortunately, our sources cannot answer these questions adequately.

The Greco-Persian Wars

We may now turn to the city wall of the Persian period restored by the returning exiles. As we have seen, the minimalists (including such eminent archaeologists and scholars as the late Michael Avi-Yonah, Yoram Tsafrir of Hebrew University, Hugh Williamson of Oxford University, Hanan Eshel of Bar-Ilan University and Ephraim Stern of Hebrew University) limit the wall of Persian period Jerusalem to the City of David.

There is no doubt that the walls of the city were partly (but not completely) destroyed when the Babylonians conquered the city in 586 BCE (see, for example, Nehemiah 1:3; 2:3, 17). They also destroyed Solomon’s Temple along with much of the rest of the city and deported its citizens to Babylonia. In Jerusalem, “Only the poorest people in the land were left” (2 Kings 24:14).

Forty-seven years after the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in 586 BCE and deported many of the people to exile in Babylon, Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, who had conquered the Babylonians and ruled most of the then-known world, allowed the Jews to return to their ancient homeland. They returned in waves. Sheshbazzar, apparently the first Jewish governor of Yehud (Judea), led the first wave and laid the foundation to rebuild the Temple, that is, to construct the Second Temple (Ezra 1:7–11, 5:14–16).

Archaeological Evidence from the Persian Period

Until fairly recently, the Persian period was characterized as the dark age of Israelite history. This is no longer true, partly because of the availability of newer materials, but especially because of the work of Ephraim Stern of Hebrew University and other archaeologists in Israel whose surveys and discoveries have opened new vistas for study of this era of profound change and development.

Ezra

Rebuilding the Temple

Return and Restoration Under the Persians

For we are bondmen; yet our God has not forsaken us in our bondage, but has extended to us his steadfast love before the kings of Persia, to grant us some reviving to set up the house of our God, to repair its ruins, and to give us protection in Judea and Jerusalem. (Ezra 9:9)