We learn something of the time spent in exile by God's people from the end of Jeremiah, from Ezekiel, Daniel and Esther. It was a strange time for the Jews. They were removed from the Temple and the daily sacrifices there and so had to adapt their religion. Synagogues appear to have developed from this time. They had to get used to using other languages. They began to speak Aramaic (some of which is found in the Bible itself) and the Old Testament was translated into Greek in this period.
In Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi we hear something of the amazing return to the Promised Land that the Jews made seventy year later in the time of Cyrus and other Persian kings. When they returned they were greatly humbled and, having seen paganism close up for more than a generation, they were as keen to forsake idolatry as they had ever been. it no longer held the attraction it once did. They settled in Jerusalem and beyond, first building the Temple and then the walls of Jerusalem and slowly re-establishing themselves in the land. The temple was inferior to the one Solomon built but the priests and Levites served faithfully. They had no king but were under the Persians, then the Greeks and then the Romans, with whim they had to learn to co-operate after attempting various levels of resistance. The last of the prophets were Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi. They then had to go four hundred years without true prophets until the coming of the last Old Testament prophet, John the Baptist.
