The exile is the hinge of the Hebrew Bible, and the return is the part almost nobody can narrate. Twelve questions on who was carried off and who stayed, which Persian king authorised what, and what Ezra and Nehemiah were each actually sent to do.
Open “Bible Trivia: The Return and the Rebuilding” on its own page — if the module does not load.
Every question, with the answer and the reason
The interactive module above runs in a sandbox of its own, which means its text is not part of this page. So here is the whole thing in full: all 12 questions, the options as they appear, the answer, and why that answer and not the one beside it. Nothing is held back to make you play first.
Easy
These turn on something stated outright in the text. If you have read the book, you have met the answer.
Which king does 2 Kings name as the one who captured Jerusalem and carried its people away?
- Sennacherib of Assyria
- Cyrus of Persia
- Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon — correct
- Neco of Egypt
Answer: Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon
2 Kings 24:10–11 for the first deportation and 25:8–10 for the burning of the temple. Sennacherib is the Assyrian who besieged Jerusalem more than a century earlier in 2 Kings 18:13 and did not take it.
Which Persian king issues the decree in Ezra 1 allowing the exiles to go home and rebuild the temple?
- Cyrus — correct
- Darius
- Artaxerxes
- Ahasuerus
Answer: Cyrus
Ezra 1:1–3. Darius later confirms the decree after a search of the archives in Ezra 6:1–12, which is why his name attaches itself to the original permission.
Who returned from the Persian court to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem?
- Ezra
- Zerubbabel
- Nehemiah — correct
- Haggai
Answer: Nehemiah
Nehemiah 2:17–18, with the wall finished in fifty-two days in 6:15. The division of labour is easy to lose: Zerubbabel rebuilt the temple in Ezra 3, and Ezra came to teach the law, not to build.
Where does Psalm 137 say the exiles sat down and wept?
- By the rivers of Babylon — correct
- By the waters of the Nile
- By the brook Kidron
- By the pools of Heshbon
Answer: By the rivers of Babylon
Psalm 137:1, with the harps hung on the willows in 137:2. The psalm is one of the very few places in the Hebrew Bible that describes the experience of exile from inside it.
Medium
These need a detail held in place — a name, a sequence, a number that only means something next to another number.
Who, with Jeshua the priest, built the altar and began the work on the temple in Ezra 3?
- Nehemiah
- Ezra
- Sanballat
- Zerubbabel — correct
Answer: Zerubbabel
Ezra 3:2 for the altar and 3:8 for the start of the building. The foundation-laying in 3:12 is the scene where the old men who had seen the first temple weep aloud while everyone else shouts.
Which two prophets does Ezra name as prophesying to the Jews who were rebuilding the temple?
- Jeremiah and Ezekiel
- Haggai and Zechariah — correct
- Malachi and Joel
- Obadiah and Nahum
Answer: Haggai and Zechariah
Ezra 5:1, and again in 6:14. Both men have books of their own dated to the same rebuilding, which makes this one of the tightest links between the histories and the prophets.
What position did Nehemiah hold at the Persian court before he asked to go to Jerusalem?
- Scribe of the law
- Cupbearer to the king — correct
- Keeper of the king’s forest
- Chief of the eunuchs
Answer: Cupbearer to the king
Nehemiah 1:11, which is the last line of his opening prayer. The keeper of the king’s forest is a real official in the same story — Asaph, in Nehemiah 2:8, who supplies the timber.
What did Ezra do before the assembled people at the Water Gate?
- Cast lots to choose who would live in Jerusalem
- Rededicate the altar with seven bulls
- Read out the register of returned exiles
- Read aloud from the book of the law from early morning until midday — correct
Answer: Read aloud from the book of the law from early morning until midday
Nehemiah 8:1–3, with the Levites explaining the sense of it in 8:7–8. The casting of lots is also in the book, at Nehemiah 11:1, but it settles who moves into the city rather than what is read.
Hard
These turn on what the evidence actually supports, which is not always what the story is remembered as saying.
Which three men does Nehemiah name as mocking the rebuilding of the wall?
- Sanballat, Tobiah and Geshem — correct
- Rehum, Shimshai and Tattenai
- Bigvai, Bani and Bunni
- Hanani, Hananiah and Hanan
Answer: Sanballat, Tobiah and Geshem
Nehemiah 2:19, and they reappear as a trio in 6:1–2. Rehum, Shimshai and Tattenai are genuine opponents too, but from the earlier temple dispute in Ezra 4:8–9 and Ezra 5:3.
In the reign of which Persian king does Ezra 7 place Ezra’s own journey to Jerusalem?
- Cyrus
- Darius
- Artaxerxes — correct
- Ahasuerus
Answer: Artaxerxes
Ezra 7:1 and 7:7–8, which date the journey to the seventh year of Artaxerxes. Cyrus belongs to the first return in Ezra 1, decades earlier, and the book makes no attempt to close the gap between them.
Whom did the king of Babylon appoint as governor over the people left behind in Judah?
- Ishmael
- Jehoiachin
- Zerubbabel
- Gedaliah — correct
Answer: Gedaliah
2 Kings 25:22, with the fuller account in Jeremiah 40:5–7. Ishmael is the man who assassinates him a few verses later in 2 Kings 25:25, which triggers the flight to Egypt.
What does 2 Kings say happened to Jehoiachin in the thirty-seventh year of his exile?
- He was executed with his sons
- He was released from prison and ate at the Babylonian king’s table — correct
- He was blinded and kept in irons
- He was sent back to govern Judah
Answer: He was released from prison and ate at the Babylonian king’s table
2 Kings 25:27–30, where Evil-merodach lifts up his head and gives him a daily allowance for life. The blinding belongs to Zedekiah in 2 Kings 25:7 — two kings, two very different ends, often merged.
What this quiz draws on
Books in play: 2 Kings, Ezra, Haggai, Nehemiah. Each of those leads to what the book contains, who has been proposed as its author, and how it is dated.
Themes: Exile and return, Temple.
Answers here are drawn from the biblical text and, where an external record bears on the question, from the artefact or publication that carries it. How this site reads a text and how this site is written set out the rules, so you can check the reasoning rather than take the answer on trust.