Now that Nehemiah is in Jerusalem, he has organized the people to build the walls. One thing he did was place people in the section of the wall which was located by their homes, which gave them personal investment in building it. The Jewish enemies still tried to stop them from building, but Nehemiah continued in prayer and in leading the people, and they built the wall up to half its height! More people joined the opposition, but Nehemiah found out about it, and half the people built, and the other half were ready to fight. Even when they were building, they kept weapons on them so they were ready to fight if necessary. Chapter 5 covers conflict within the walls, because the rich Jews had taken advantage of the Jews in poor circumstances instead of helping them. Nehemiah addressed this issue as well, and ordered the rich give back all the fields, vineyards, olive groves and houses, and they were no longer to charge interest to their fellow Jews. They agreed. We also learned that Nehemiah shared his wages as the governor with his fellow Jews. There was more opposition from outside of the city, but Nehemiah did not waver. They even paid off some Jewish prophets to try and intimidate Nehemiah, but that did not work either. One thing we see in this passage, is that Nehemiah prayed to his God over every situation. The wall was completed, after just 52 days, and 6:16 says, "When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God." Nehemiah positioned people in positions of gatekeeper, Levites and singers, and guards for the city. A registration of the families took place, and then an assembly. Ezra the priest read from the Law and the Levites explained it to the people. It became a day of celebration. The next day they read about the Feast of Booths, the celebration of the Lord's deliverance of the Jews from Egypt and through the wanderings in the wilderness, so they celebrated that for a whole week.
