Antiochus sent Apollonius, the captain of the Mysians, with an army of twenty-two thousand: This Apollonius is probably the same person as the unnamed Mysian commander in 1Macc 1.29, where Revised Standard Version refers to him as “a chief collector of tribute” (see the comments there). Good News Bible renders Apollonius as “a man named Apollonius,” which signals the reader that this Apollonius has not been mentioned in the book earlier. Good News Bible‘s model for the first half of this verse is rather difficult to translate. Contemporary English Version is simpler with “that he sent a Mysian officer named Apollonius to Jerusalem with twenty-two thousand soldiers.”

And commanded him to slay all the grown men and to sell the women and boys as slaves: A simpler and better model here than the one in Good News Bible is “He ordered him to kill all the men in the city and to sell the women and children as slaves.”

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on 1-2 Maccabees. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2011. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.