And every one of the Jews taken as a captive from the land of Judah into any part of my kingdom, I set free without payment: The prisoners whom the Syrians had captured had probably been sold as slaves; this was the custom. Here Demetrius sets them free. An alternative model is “I hereby release from captivity all Jews in my kingdom who were captured in Judea. They are to be set free without any payment.” In languages that do not have a passive voice, we may translate “I will free any Jew whom my people [or, soldiers/they] have taken prisoner anywhere in my kingdom; you [the Jews] won’t have to pay anything for them” or “My people have taken many Jews prisoner. I hereby free them all; you won’t….”

And let all officials cancel also the taxes on their cattle is literally “and let all release the taxes and/even of their cattle,” which is difficult to understand. Who is meant by all? The released captives, all Jews, or government officials? If it refers to the released captives or the Jews, why is the Greek verb for cancel in the active voice? Whose cattle are meant? Could captives have owned cattle? What kind of taxes are meant? There are many guesses to these questions, but no solid answers. Goldstein suggests that perhaps the prisoners of war returned to Judea are to be exempt from all taxes to compensate them for their loss of freedom. Several others suggest that perhaps there was some kind of tax laid on livestock transported from one place to another. We simply do not know. The versions go in either of two directions for the sense of this sentence: (a) all the released captives are to be exempt from taxes, even on their cattle (so Good News Bible), and (b) all officials are to stop collecting taxes from the released captives, even on their cattle (so Revised Standard Version). Of these two options, we have a slight preference for the latter one, and would suggest joining this sentence to the previous one as follows: “… without any payment, and no one is to collect taxes from them, not even on their livestock [or, cattle].” Good News Bible‘s footnote is appropriate here. For cattle see the comments on 1Macc 1.32.

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.