Two more rhetorical questions follow in this verse, both in the negative form, obliging the persons who were being asked the questions to agree with Nehemiah’s charges. Then he draws his conclusion in the form of an indictment.

Did not your fathers act in this way, and did not God bring all this evil on us and on this city?: Nehemiah addresses the Jewish leaders directly in the second person plural. At this point he refers to your ancestors, not identifying himself with their actions. He likens their profaning the sabbath to the deeds of their ancestors (as in New Revised Standard Version), who brought about this evil by their not keeping the Sabbath (see Jer 17.19-27; Ezek 20.12-24). “This calamity” (New International Version) is brought by God on all of them and on Jerusalem. Here Nehemiah includes himself when he says on us. Us should be translated as a first person plural inclusive pronoun. The reference to this evil may be an obscure way to remind them of the fact that they are not independent but are living under a foreign power.

Yet you bring more wrath upon Israel …: In Hebrew this sentence begins with the connective conjunction in a contrasting sense. It is followed by an independent second person plural pronoun you and a participle. You is emphatic, so Nouvelle Bible Segond translates “And you, you increase his anger…!” The participle is from the verb “to add, to increase” and the object of the participle is God’s anger, as Good News Translation makes explicit. For wrath see Ezra 10.14. In some languages the verb will be translated as a causative: “you cause God’s anger to become greater against Israel.” An exclamation mark may be used at the end of the sentence to indicate to the reader the emphatic nature of the statement as Chouraqui has done (also Contemporary English Version).

Quoted with permission from Noss, Philip A. and Thomas, Kenneth J. A Handbook on Nehemiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2005. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .