The Return

By the year 540, the Persian king Cyrus (or Koresh in Hebrew) had become the undisputed ruler of what had been the Babylonian empire. This marked the first era of enlightened and universal practice of religious tolerance in the ancient world. Sympathetic to the plight of the Jewish exiles, and anxious to reinvigorate the destitute Land of Judah, he told them they could return to their homeland. Thus began the waves of return. Initially, friction was rife between the returnees and those who had remained in Judah, stymieing attempts to seriously reconstruct the past glory of the land.

Soon however, a large group of exiles, numbering tens of thousands, returned, and construction of the Second Temple began in earnest. The Second Temple was finished in 515 BCE. It was not as grand as Solomon's temple, and it did not house the Holy Ark of the Covenant. However, it was a genuine Jewish/Hebrew structure where the people could worship. Yet, many of the wealthy Jews still remained in Persia and true prosperity in Judah remained elusive.

In the 440s, the Persian emperor sent Nehemiah, a high counselor in his court, to be governor of Judah. He appointed Ezra, a Jewish scribe, to provide religious order to the province. Nehemiah expeditiously refortified the walls of Jerusalem and established the Knesset Hagedolah (Great Assembly) as the supreme religious and judicial body of the Jewish people. Under Ezra's leadership, reforms were instituted in religious practices, and the law (Torah) was read aloud to the public, and translated from Hebrew into Aramaic, the spoken language of the time.

Over the next centuries, Judah flourished as the Jews rebuilt Jerusalem and developed the surrounding areas. Jews were influenced by both Persian culture and the new fad of the fourth century, Hellenism. This was the period of the Wisdom Literature: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job were written.

The Greeks

As part of the ancient world conquered by Alexander the Great of Greece (332 BCE), the Land remained a Jewish theocracy under Syrian-based Seleucid rulers. However, when the Jews were prohibited from practicing their religion and the Temple was desecrated as part of an effort to impose Greek-oriented culture, the Jews rose in revolt (166 BCE).

Hasmonean Dynasty (142-63 BCE)

First led by Mattathias of the priestly Hasmonean family and then by his son Judah the Maccabee, the Jews entered Jerusalem and purified the Temple (164 BCE), events commemorated each year by the festival of Hanukkah .

Following further Hasmonean victories (147 BCE), the Seleucids restored autonomy to Judah, and, with the collapse of the Seleucid kingdom (129 BCE), Jewish independence was achieved. Under the Hasmonean dynasty, which lasted about 80 years, the kingdom regained boundaries not far short of Solomon's realm, political consolidation under Jewish rule was attained and Jewish life flourished.

Roman Rule (63 BCE-313 CE)

When the Romans replaced the Seleucids as the great power in the region, they granted the Hasmonean king, Hyrcanus II, limited authority under the Roman governor of Damascus. The Jews were hostile to the new regime, and the following years witnessed frequent insurrections. A last attempt to restore the former glory of the Hasmonean dynasty was made by Mattathias Antigonus, whose defeat and death brought Hasmonean rule to an end (40 BCE), and the Land became a province of the Roman Empire.

In 37 BCE Herod, a son-in-law of Hyrcanus II, was appointed King of Judah by the Romans. He became one of the most powerful monarchs in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. A great admirer of Greco-Roman culture, Herod launched a massive construction program, which included the cities of Caesarea and the fortresses at Herodium and Masada. He remodeled the Temple into one of the most magnificent buildings of its time. But despite his many achievements, Herod failed to win the trust and support of his Jewish subjects.

Ten years after Herod's death (4 BCE), Judah came under direct Roman administration. Growing anger against increased Roman suppression of Jewish life resulted in sporadic violence, which escalated into a full-scale revolt in 66 CE. Superior Roman forces led by Titus were finally victorious, razing Jerusalem to the ground (70 CE) and defeating the last Jewish outpost at Masada (73 CE).

The total destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple was catastrophic for the Jewish people. According to the contemporary historian Josephus Flavius, hundreds of thousands of Jews perished in the siege of Jerusalem and elsewhere in the country, and many thousands more were sold into slavery, to every corner of the Roman Empire from the British Isles to Eastern Mesopatamia.