Then he divided the army and placed the horsemen in the midst of the infantry, for the cavalry of the enemy were very numerous: John placed the cavalry in between two lines of foot soldiers. The ordinary tactic was to place cavalry at the two ends of a line of infantry. John apparently believed that his own horsemen would stand no chance against the greater number of enemy cavalry, so he positioned his horsemen in the middle of the line of battle. (The infantry did not surround the cavalry.) This unusual move would allow the Judean cavalry to overwhelm the enemy foot soldiers.

It is possible to reorder the clauses of this verse as follows:

• The enemy had a large number of horse soldiers, so John arranged his army so that his horse soldiers were in the middle of the line of battle, with the foot soldiers on both sides [or, in the middle of two lines of foot soldiers].

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.