The return to Zion (, Shivat Tzion, or שבי ציון, Shavei Tzion, lit. Zion returnees) is a term that refers to the event written in the biblical books of Ezra-Nehemiah in which the Jews returned to the land of Israel from the Babylonian exile following the decree by the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great, the conqueror of the Babylonian empire in 538 BC, also known as Cyrus's Declaration.