Trouble on the Farm: We seem to move into a different world in this chapter. Gone is the battle zone of chapter 4. In its place is a seemingly unrelated area of social tension, where one would scarcely think that rebuilding the wall was a top priority. The recurring pattern, from chapter 2 onward, of progress on the wall, the response of enemy opposition, and Nehemiah’s counterresponse, is put on hold. The enemy response of 6:1 appears to target the progress of chapter 4, as if chapter 5 did not exist. The blatant digression of 5:14–18, in which Nehemiah discusses his conduct over the course of a twelve-year governorship, increases our sense that the previous story is now interrupted. It is clear that chapter 5 as a whole belongs to Nehemiah’s memoirs, but it is difficult to connect the ch…