Nehemiah 6

The enemies encountered in Chps 2&4 showed up here once again, now that they had heard that Nehemiah "had rebuilt the wall and not a gap was left in it".  Nehemiah resisted their persistent invitation to meet with them, by focusing on carrying on the work of God in rebuilding the wall.  Even when the enemies tried to intimidate him through lies and deception, Nehemiah discerned their real motives and just prayed for strength.  When the enemies changed their tactics and tried to give Nehemiah "a bad name to discredit [him]", he was again able to discern it and countered with prayer.

So, despite all the attacks from the enemies and continued intimidation from Tobiah, the WALL was COMPLETED in 52 days.  "When all [the] 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!"

What a wonderful ending to this first part of the Book of Nehemiah.  The Wall is RESTORED; and God is recognized as the one Who made it happen.  The wall was completed in a relatively short amount of time, considering that it had been in ruins for almost 150 years.   It even took Nehemiah more time to pray and prepare, than to actually do the work.

Nehemiah can be considered a good illustration of one who stood in the gap, as described in Ezekiel 22:30 "I looked for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found no one."  The word for "gap" is the same in both Ezekiel and Nehemiah; and the picture of an open space in the wall being filled in by one standing guard there is a nice depiction of how intercessory prayer bridges the gaps in life.  And ultimately, it is the Messiah who is able to bridge the gap between God and man that was due to sin.