5th-century BCE Jews

Ezra (fl. fifth or fourth century BCE) is the main character of the Book of Ezra. According to the Hebrew Bible, he was an important Jewish scribe (sofer) and priest (kohen) in the early Second Temple period. In the Greek Septuagint, the name is rendered as ' (), from which the Latin name Esdras comes. His name is probably a shortened Aramaic translation of the Hebrew name ('), meaning "Yah helps".

thumb|right|Nehemiah rebuilding Jerusalem, illustration by Adolf Hult, 1919 Nehemiah (; ) is the central figure of the Book of Nehemiah, which describes his work in rebuilding Jerusalem during the Second Temple period as the governor of Yehud Medinata, the autonomous province of Judea within the Achaemenid Empire, under Artaxerxes I (465–424 BC).