From Nehemiah 1:11 we learn that he was cupbearer to the king. The king in question is Artaxerxes I, who reigned over the Persian Empire in the years 464-424 BC. Since Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians in 587 BC, Nehemiah’s ancestry would have lived in exile for more than 130 years already. Under permission granted by Cyrus in 538 BC, the first group of exiles returned to the Promised Land, as recorded in Ezra 2:1–70; a second group, under Ezra’s leadership, returned in 458 (Ezra 7:7). Nehemiah had stayed in Babylon. His name is derived from two Hebrew words that mean Yahweh comforts.