Translators should begin a new paragraph here (so Revised Standard Version, Good News Bible, Contemporary English Version).

Now when Seron, the commander of the Syrian army, heard that Judas had gathered a large company, including a body of faithful men who stayed with him and went out to battle: As noted in the introductory comments on this verse, Seron probably commanded a unit of the Seleucid army stationed close enough to take enough action against the Jewish rebels when Apollonius failed. The Greek text of the last half of this verse is uncertain, ambiguous, and grammatically awkward. It is literally “Judas gathered a gathering and an assembly of faithful ones with him and of those going out to war.” Among the problems are the following:

1. Are the “gathering” and “assembly” the same?
2. Are the “faithful ones” and “those going out to war” the same?
3. Does the “and” underlined above belong in the text? Some manuscripts omit it.

The third question helps us to understand the others. It is the presence of this “and” that creates most of the difficulty. Deciding a textual question on the grounds of which interpretation makes more acceptable sense is a questionable procedure, but with Goldstein, we prefer to omit the questionable “and.” A scribe may have added it by mistake, since this “and” and the “and” preceding it are followed by words in Greek beginning with the same two letters. If this “and” is deleted, the text becomes clearer and manageable. The answer to question 1 is then “probably,” and the answer to question 2 is then “yes.” Other questions remain:

4. Is it “faithful ones” or “believers” (so New Jerusalem Bible, Abel)? We answer “faithful ones.”
5. Does “faithful ones” mean “people who are religiously faithful” or “loyal soldiers”? We answer “loyal soldiers.”
6. Is it “those going out to war” or “men of military age” (so New English Bible, Revised English Bible)? We answer “those going out to war.”
7. Does “with him” go with “gathered” or with “going out to war”? We answer “going out to war.”

With all of this said, we suggest the following model for the whole verse:

• Seron, the commander of the Syrian army, heard that Judas had gathered a large group of loyal men who were following him into battle, and that he had defeated Apollonius.

We have added “and that he had defeated Apollonius” to ease the transition from the battle with Apollonius to this new account.

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.