the Babylonian Empire itself had gone and had been replaced in 539 BC by the Persian Empire under Cyrus. One of the first actions of Cyrus had been to send home the captive peoples who had been brought as exiles to Babylon. So we are now in 538 BC and a party of Judaean exiles have come back home to rebuild their temple. Though the whole book traditionally bears his name, Ezra himself does not appear until chapter 7. The first part of the book (chs. 1–6) is a historical survey telling us of the pioneers