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The Babylonian captivity or Babylonian exile was the period in Jewish history during which a large number of Judeans from the ancient Kingdom of Judah were forcibly relocated to Babylonia by the Neo-Babylonian Empire. [1]
The Neo-Babylonian Empire under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar II occupied the Kingdom of Judah between 597–586 BCE and destroyed the First Temple in Jerusalem. [2] According to the Hebrew Bible, the last king of Judah, Zedekiah, was forced to watch his sons put to death, then his own eyes were put out and he was exiled to Babylon (2 Kings 25).
During the days of the Babylonian captivity, writings by the Israelite prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel encouraged their people with the promise of a future gathering of the exiles to the Land of Israel. Since the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD, the continual hope for exiled Jews ' return to the Land of Israel has served as a core theme ...
539 BC: Babylon is conquered by Cyrus the Great, defeating Nabonidus. 538 BC: Return of some Jews from Babylonian exile who build the Second Temple about fifty years after the destruction of the First Temple, from 520 BC–516 BC. 537 BC: Jews transported to Babylon are allowed to return to Jerusalem, bringing to a close the Babylonian captivity.
The next experience of exile was the Babylonian captivity, in which portions of the population of the Kingdom of Judah were deported in 597 BCE and again in 586 BCE by the Neo-Babylonian Empire under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar II. A Jewish diaspora existed for several centuries before the fall of the Second Temple in 70 CE.
During this time Jews lived in thriving communities all across ancient Babylonia. In the Geonic period (650–1250 CE), the Babylonian Yeshiva Academies were the chief centres of Jewish learning; the Geonim (meaning either "Splendor" or "Geniuses"), who were the heads of these schools, were recognized as the highest authorities in Jewish law.
According to the Book of Ezra, the Persian Cyrus the Great ended the Babylonian exile in 538 BCE, [14] the year after he captured Babylon. [15] The exile ended with the return under Zerubbabel the Prince (so-called because he was a descendant of the royal line of David) and Joshua the Priest (a descendant of the line of the former High Priests of the Temple) and their construction of the ...
According to the Bible, following the fall of Jerusalem, the Babylonian general Nebuzaradan was sent to complete its destruction. The city and Solomon's Temple were plundered and destroyed, and most of the Judeans were taken by Nebuzaradan into captivity in Babylon, with only a few people permitted to remain to tend to the land (Jeremiah 52:16 ...