The Jewish exiles started to return to the Holy Land in 539BC. We should not imagine a Cecil B. DeMille type of caravan with thousands all in an orderly line. People tended to drift back depending on their circumstances in Babylon or their degree of devotion. After almost one hundred years (in 444BC) a court officialwho was Jewish, Nehemiah, was sent as governor of what was, in the Persian mind, the new province of Judea. Nehemiah and “Ezra the Priest” sought to re-create Jewish society on the basis of Torah, the Jewish Law. The Book of Nehemiah descibes a dramatic scene where a reading of the law caused the people to panic in tears since they realized they weren’t living up to it. Nehemiah told them not to weep: “Rejoicing in the LORD must be your strength!” Now that they had law they would truly be able to live a happy life.
