Wikipedia's first sentence called it “term that refers to the event in which the jews returned to the land of israel from the babylonian exile follow”. Today it says “event recorded in ezra–nehemiah of the hebrew bible”.
Measured, not asserted. Every count, date and revision on this page was taken from Wikipedia's own history and checked against the live article. The words quoted are theirs.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-03.
We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the 2025 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since.Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now.Red text: written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot.1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in 2025
Biblical event For the present-day return of Jewish people to Israel, see Aliyah . ( Learn how and when to remove this message ) Cyrus restoring the vessels of the temple, by Gustave Doré The return to Zion ( Hebrew : שִׁיבָת צִיּוֹן or שבי ציון , Shivat Tzion or Shavei Tzion , lit. ' Zion returnees ' ) is an event recorded in Ezra–Nehemiah of the Hebrew Bible , in which the Jews of the Kingdom of Judah —subjugated by the Neo-Babylonian Empire —were freed from the Babylonian captivity following the Persian conquest of Babylon . In 539 BCE, the Persian king Cyrus the Great issued the Edict of Cyrus allowing the Jews to return to Jerusalem and the Land of Judah , which was made a self-governing Jewish province under the new Persian Empire . The Persian period marks the onset of the Second Temple period in Jewish history . Zerubabel , appointed as governor of Judah by the Persian king, oversaw the construction of the Second Temple . Later, prominent leaders like Nehemiah and Ezra emerged. Nehemiah's activities dated to the third quarter of the fifth century BCE, while the precise period of Ezra's activity remains a subject of debate. Their efforts to rebuild the social and spiritual life of the Jewish returnees in their ancestral homeland are chronicled in the biblical books named after them . These texts also document the interactions of the Jews with neighboring figures, including Sanballat the Horonite , likely the governor of Samaria, Tobiah the Ammonite , who likely owned lands in Ammon , and Geshem the Arabian , king of the Qedarites , all of whom opposed Nehemiah's efforts to rebuild Jerusalem. One of the significant achievements of the Persian period was the canonization of the Torah , a topic of enduring scholarly interest due to its profound impact on Western civilization . Traditionally attributed to Ezra, who presented the "Torah of Moses" to the people of Judah, possibly around 398 BCE, this process of creating a unified book of rules played an important role in fostering the distinctive identity of the Jews during this period. Babylonian texts, archaeological evidence, and population estimates suggest that only a small group of exiles, likely around 4,000, returned to Judah over several decades, contrary to the figure of 42,360 listed in Ezra 2 . "9. התקופה הפרסית". מבוא לארכיאולוגיה של ארץ-ישראל: משלהי תקופת האבן ועד כיבושי אלכסנדר [ Archaeology of the Land of Israel: From the Neolithic to Alexander the Great ] (in Hebrew). Given the situation depicted in the Babylonian texts, it is perhaps unsurprising that most likely only a small group of exiles returned to Judah. Even if the list of returnees in Ezra 2 does contain some historical truth, the number of returnees it gives, 42,360, is wholly unrealistic. In the early Persian period the province of Yehud probably had only 12,000 inhabitants (Finkelstein), or perhaps at the most 30,000 (Lipschits). At the same time, the archaeological record rules out the possibility of a mass return. Neither Jerusalem nor Yehud shows evidence of a spike in settlement growth in the early Persian period. A more realistic number of returnees would be around 4,000 people coming back to Yehud over several decades.
This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 1277945663.
The opening as it stood in 2010
Zion Returnees ) is a term that refers to the event in which the Jews returned to the Land of Israel from the Babylonian exile following the decree by the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great , the conqueror of the Babylonian empire in 538 BC, also known as Cyrus's Declaration . Although the term was first coined after the destruction of the Second Temple (mentioned in the Song of Degrees ), it was attributed to the event of the return of the Jews from the Babylonian exile to the Land of Israel after the destruction of the First Temple , following the decree of Cyrus the Great. The biblical meaning of "The Return to Zion", Aliyah , was later on borrowed from the ancient event and was adopted as the definition of all the immigrations of Jews to the Land of Israel and the State of Israel in modern times. The modern Aliyah began in the midst of the 19th century, to Jaffa, of the followers of Rabbi Judah Bibas and Rabbi Judah Alkalai , known as the Herald of Zion ( מבשרי ציון ) pioneers of modern Zionism , and up to the rest of the Aliyot (plural of Aliyah ) made after the establishment of the State of Israel. The period between the biblical Return to Zion and the modern one consisted of several attempts of small groups to immigrate to the Land of Israel, and this period could be roughly divided into two categories: one for the Aliyah during the Middle Ages and during the period of Renaissance , and the other for the Aliyah during the modern era (18th century and at the beginning of the 19th century).
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 365293922.
The opening as it stood in 2015
Zion returnees ) is a term that refers to the event written in the biblical books of Ezra-Nehemiah in which the Jews returned to the land of Israel from the Babylonian exile following the decree by the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great , the conqueror of the Babylonian empire in 538 BC, also known as Cyrus's Declaration . Although the term was first coined after the destruction of the Second Temple (mentioned in the Song of Degrees Psalms 126:1 ), it was attributed to the event of the return of the Jews from the Babylonian exile to the land of Israel after the destruction of the first temple , following the decree of Cyrus. The biblical meaning of "the return to Zion", Aliyah , was borrowed later from the ancient event and was adopted as the definition of all the immigrations of Jews to the land of Israel and the State of Israel in modern times. The modern Aliyah began in the midst of the 19th century, to Jaffa, of the followers of Rabbi Judah Bibas and Rabbi Judah Alkalai , known as the Herald of Zionism (מבשרי הציונות) pioneers of modern Zionism , and up to the rest of the Aliyot (plural of Aliyah ) made after the establishment of the State of Israel. The period between the return to Zion and the modern one consisted of several attempts of small groups to immigrate to the land of Israel, and this period could be roughly divided into two categories: one for the Aliyah during the Middle Ages and during the period of Renaissance , and the other for the Aliyah during the modern era (18th century and at the beginning of the 19th century).
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 659078255.
The opening as it stood in 2020 3 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear
Zion returnees ) refers to the event in the biblical books of Ezra–Nehemiah in which the Jews returned to the Land of Israel from the Babylonian exile following the decree by the emperor Cyrus the Great , the conqueror of the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 539 BCE, also known as Cyrus's edict .The term was first coined after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. The biblical meaning of the return to Zion , aliyah , was borrowed later from the ancient event and was adopted as the definition of all the immigration events of Jews to the Land of Israel and the State of Israel in modern times.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 964353049.
The opening as it stood on October 6, 2023 3 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear
Biblical event Cyrus restoring the vessels of the temple, by Gustave Doré The return to Zion ( , Shivat Tzion or Shavei Tzion , lit. ' Zion returnees ' ) is an event recorded in Ezra–Nehemiah of the Hebrew Bible , in which the Jews of the Kingdom of Judah —subjugated by the Neo-Babylonian Empire —were freed from the Babylonian captivity following the Persian conquest of Babylon .After their release, the Persian king Cyrus the Great issued a proclamation known as the Edict of Cyrus that enabled the freed Jewish populace, exiled from Judah, to return to Jerusalem and the Land of Judah , which had begun to function as a self-governing Jewish province under the Achaemenid Persian Empire .
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1173943135.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “term that refers to the event in which the jews returned to the land of israel from the babylonian exile follow”. Today it says “event recorded in ezra–nehemiah of the hebrew bible”. Read the current article and compare.
2010
2015
2020
Oct '23
2025
Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.
What Wikipedia says this is
Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined since 2010, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.
Then
term that refers to the event in which the jews returned to the land of israel from the babylonian exile follow
Now
event recorded in ezra–nehemiah of the hebrew bible
Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.
