Now these are the children of the province
Either of the province of Babylon, as Aben Ezra, where they were either born, or had dwelt for many years; or else rather, according to Jarchi, of the province of Judea, as it is called, ( Ezra 5:8 ) once a flourishing kingdom, but reduced to a province of the Babylonian monarchy, now in the hands of the Medes and Persians, of which province they and their fathers originally were:
that went out of the captivity, of those which had been carried away,
whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away unto Babylon;
who either in person, or in their parents, were carried captive by him, and who were the tribes of Judah and Benjamin; and they are only mentioned, because they were the principal that returned, though there were some of the other tribes that also came up with them:
and came again unto Jerusalem and Judah, everyone unto his city;
that he dwelt in before, or was now assigned to him by lot, see ( Nehemiah 11:1 )