Who allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple?
King Cyrus of the Medes and Persians issued a decree permitting the Jews to return to their homeland, to Jerusalem, and to rebuild their Temple. This occurred about 70 years after the Babylonian captivity, when the Medo-Persian Empire succeeded Babylon as the next conquering empire.
Les explains that after Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian Empire destroyed the Temple and Jerusalem in 606 B.C., taking Israel into captivity, the next empire was the Medes and Persians. Their King Cyrus gave a decree that the Jews were free to go back to their homeland, back to Jerusalem, and had permission to rebuild their Temple. However, Les notes that most Jews in Babylon did not return; only 44,000 out of several million went back to the land of Israel.