The children of Harim who returned numbered three hundred and twenty, and they made the journey back from captivity. This verse is one entry in the record of those who responded to Cyrus's decree and went up to Jerusalem, returning to their own land after Cyrus opened the way for the exiles to go back. It belongs specifically to those already returned with Zerubbabel in the first year of Cyrus, to the number of 42,360 persons.
That company is distinct from the Jews who still remained in Babylon and were invited to return, many of whom afterward went up to Jerusalem with Ezra. The wider list in Ezra 2:1-65 records nearly fifty thousand people who accepted the offer to leave. Their return marked the end of the captivity in the sense that they were free to leave, even though many Jews remained in exile.
The children of Harim who returned numbered three hundred and twenty, and they made the journey back from captivity. This verse is one entry in the record of those who responded to Cyrus's decree and went up to Jerusalem, returning to their own land after Cyrus opened the way for the exiles to go back. It belongs specifically to those already returned with Zerubbabel in the first year of Cyrus, to the number of 42,360 persons.
That company is distinct from the Jews who still remained in Babylon and were invited to return, many of whom afterward went up to Jerusalem with Ezra. The wider list in Ezra 2:1-65 records nearly fifty thousand people who accepted the offer to leave. Their return marked the end of the captivity in the sense that they were free to leave, even though many Jews remained in exile.