[aron]

Originally Posted by OBW

... the Jews who returned were not freed from slavery. They were simply allowed to possess the land they had been captured from, but as servants of Persia. And as Nigel points out, then of Greece, Syria, and finally Rome. I believe that there is a period of less than 100 years in which they are not entirely under someone else’s thumb...

And those that remained in Babylon/Persia were no more or less slaves of Persia than those who returned. They just lived in a different place.

I would like to address this question using Psalm 126, and the phrase "the captivity of Zion". Many of us remember singing the song,

When the LORD turned again the captivity of Zion
We were like them that dream
We were like them that dream
Then was our mouth filled with laughter
And our tongues with singing
Then said they among the heathen
The LORD has done great things for them.

Now, I don't know the details of others' stories (and barely remember mine), but it seems to me that the local church experience for most of us was preferable to what we'd been doing before. So the "ground" here, of "Zion", was not the ground of locality, of dirt, of a city, but rather the ground of a human heart. It was recovered back to its Father, its creator. And this heart felt itself brimming with love.

I would characterize that as recovery. Or as Ohio said, restoration, remembrance, revival, rejuvenation, or whatever. The point is, Zion was in captivity and it got "turned again".

Historically, it might be seen in that worship was resumed on the holy hill of Zion in Jerusalem. Whether or not Jerusalem was under the political thumb of Persia, Greece, Syria or Rome does not overturn that. The fact remains that the Psalmist believed that the LORD had done great things for them.

Rev 2:24,25 But to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not learned what some call the deep things of Satan, to you I say, I do not lay on you any other burden. Only hold fast what you have until I come.