Salvation history (German: Heilsgeschichte) seeks to understand the personal redemptive activity of God within human history in order to effect his eternal saving intentions. This approach to history is found in parts of the Old Testament written around the sixth century BC, such as Deutero-Isaiah and some of the Psalms. In Deutero-Isaiah, for example, Yahweh is portrayed as causing the fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire at the hands of Cyrus the Great and the Persians, with the aim of restoring his exiled people to their land.