With the Exodus as their symbolic and narrative backdrop, the prophets declared that Israel would be released from the bondage that had begun with Babylon and that continued into Jesus’ own day. Nobody in Jesus’ day would have claimed that the visions of Isaiah, Jeremiah, or Ezekiel had yet been fulfilled. The Babylons of this world would be defeated, and Israel would be free. And this real “return from exile”—that is, this complete liberation—would, of course, involve the return of YHWH to Zion. Prophet after prophet says so; nowhere in Second-Temple literature does anyone claim that it has actually happened. The prophets, moreover, interpreted the exile as the punishment: for Israel’s sin; the end of exile would, therefore, be “the forgiveness of sins.” It would mean Israel’s redemption, evil’s defeat, and YHWH’s return. All of this can be summed up in a single phrase: “the kingdom of God.” 

(N.T. Wright, “The Historical Jesus and Christian Theology” in Sewanee Theological Review (1996) p. 1-2)