Wast thou not angry enough with us to destroy us without leaving a root or seed or name?: This question is a rhetorical one, so it does not ask for information. Obviously God did not destroy his people completely. This confession of God’s mercy may be expressed as a strong statement (so Good News Bible; see also the models below). Without leaving a root refers to uprooting a tree so that it cannot come up again from a stump (see the comments on verse 78). Some languages will be able to keep the image of a root, but in others this phrase may be translated “with no way to continue existing.” Good News Bible has “and leave none of us alive.” The image of a seed refers to descendants of the Jews. God could have left them no way to survive. Good News Bible uses the nonfigurative expression “with no descendants.” Without leaving a … name means God could have destroyed them so completely that people in the future would have no idea that they had ever existed. We may say “erasing us from history” or even “leaving no footprint of us on the path of history.”

Here are possible models for this verse:

• You were angry with us, and could have destroyed us completely, with no way to continue existing, erasing us from history.

• You were angry with us, and could have destroyed us completely, leaving us no descendants, and erasing us from history.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on 1-2 Esdras. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2019. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.