He took no account whatever of the power of God may be rendered “He completely forgot [or, was not thinking] about God’s power” or “He payed no attention to….”

But was elated with his ten thousands of infantry, and his thousands of cavalry, and his eighty elephants: The Greek verb rendered was elated with means that Lysias was thrilled to be the leader of such a powerful army, so he had complete confidence that he could overcome his enemies. The reader has already been told that Lysias had 80,000 infantry. The author can easily speak here of ten thousands simply because Greek has a single word meaning “ten thousand.” In English we can express this well as “thousands and thousands.” For elephants see the comments on 1Macc 1.17. Eighty is a lot of elephants. Many Greek manuscripts omit the number, simply saying that Lysias had elephants. Translators who wish may simply omit the number eighty, taking care that the resulting translation does not talk of “thousands of [cavalry, infantry, and] elephants!” We are not recommending this omission (suspecting that many scribes couldn’t conceive of eighty elephants and just left the number out), but it is an option.

Good News Bible rearranges this verse in a helpful way. Another possible model that does this is:

• He had complete confidence in his thousands and thousands of soldiers and cavalry and his eighty elephants, but he was not taking God’s power into consideration [or, was not thinking that God would show his power].

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.