'Captivity' in the Bible
In the month of Chislev, while I was in Shushan at the palace, Hanani, one of my brothers, arrived with some men from Judah. I asked them about the Jews who had escaped, about those who had survived the Babylonian captivity, and about Jerusalem.
They told me, "The survivors of the captivity there in the province are living in great distress and shame. Furthermore, the Jerusalem wall remains broken down and its gates have been burned by fire."
I found a register of the original inhabitants in which there was recorded a list of descendants of the province of Judah who returned from captivity, from those who had been exiled by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. They had come back to Jerusalem and to Judah, each one to his town.