Just as had been foretold, Cyrus broke the merciless prison keeper’s power and released the Israelite prisoners. Thus, in 539 B.C.E., the desolator of the earthly estate of Jehovah’s people was toppled from the high position of World Power. Then Jehovah’s spirit was poured out from on high upon the repentant Israelite exiles in 537 B.C.E. In the strength and under the guidance of that active force from the Most High God, the repentant Israelite remnant left Babylon and trekked back to their desolate homeland to rebuild Jerusalem and its holy temple. Their reoccupied land gradually lost its desolate appearance as they converted it into a most fruitful land, the beauty of which approached that of Paradise, the Garden of Eden.

2. What indicated whether the desolated condition of the remnant was to keep on indefinitely, and what was needed to alter the situation?

² Did Jehovah God approve of having this desolate condition of his dedicated people keep on forever? No. In pre-Christian times he decreed that Jerusalem and the land of Judah should lie desolate for a limited time, for no longer than seventy years. The Babylonian Empire was not to glory over its victims, Jerusalem and Judah, for all time. So, too, God did not purpose that the victims of Babylon the Great, namely, the remnant of spiritual Israel, should be left in a desolate state indefinitely. Well, then, what was now needed to alter the situation to the glory of their God, Jehovah? A special operation of holy spirit toward them!

3. According to Isaiah 32:15, 16, the desolated condition of Jehovah’s people was to continue until what occurred?

³ In Isaiah 32:15 Jehovah assured his people that their lamentable desolated condition would last only “until upon us the spirit is poured out from on high.” After that, what? “And,” as the prophecy goes on to say, “the wilderness will have become an orchard, and the orchard itself is accounted as a real forest. And in the wilderness justice will certainly reside, and in the orchard righteousness itself will dwell.”​—Isa. 32:15, 16.

4, 5. (a) So, what was to take place upon the remnant of spiritual Israelites? (b) How was this confirmed to the remnant in the vision given to Ezekiel showing a valley full of dead bones?

⁴ Ah, yes, for the remnant of spiritual Israelites there was to be an outpouring of spirit, along with release from Babylon the Great. This bright prospect was confirmed to them by the vision that Jehovah gave to his prophet Ezekiel, while this prophet was still an exile in ancient Babylon. In the vision he saw a low valley plain that was full of the disjointed bones of countless dead Israelites.

⁵ For those dead Israelites in the vision, the case looked hopeless. For the living Israelites exiled in ancient Babylon many hundreds of miles away from the desolate homeland, the case looked equally hopeless. Not hopeless, though, from Almighty God’s standpoint. He is the God who can even resurrect the dead. Centuries earlier he had used his prophets Elijah and Elisha to resurrect literally dead persons, by means of holy spirit. So, in the vision to Ezekiel he did re-create and reanimate all those dead Israelites. In explaining the meaning of the vision, Jehovah said: “You will have to know that I am Jehovah when I open your burial places and when I bring you up out of your burial places [in Babylon], O my people. And I will put my spirit in you, and you must come to life, and I will settle you upon your soil; and you will have to know that I myself, Jehovah, have spoken and I have done it.”​—Ezek. 37:13, 14.

6. How did a spiritual resurrection take place, and what did onlooking nations say in amazement at what they observed?

⁶ True to this prophecy, Babylon ceased to be the burial place of the Jewish nation. A spiritual resurrection took place. As by a miracle, in 537 B.C.E. a band of exiled Israelites and their attendants marched out of Babylon and settled in their homeland. They set themselves to rebuilding Jerusalem and its temple and making their long-desolate homeland like a paradise. No longer was there any reason for them to beat themselves upon the breasts in “lamentation over the desirable fields, over the fruit-bearing vine,” that had been left to desolation by the Babylonian conquerors in 607 B.C.E. What a manifestation there then was of holy spirit in action! The onlooking pagan nations were amazed! Psalm 126:2 reports that they said: “Jehovah has done a great thing in what he has done with them.”