Good News Translation restructures the first part of this verse. In Greek went to the garden is literally “comes there” and is preceded by the long clause, taking with him a group of Roman soldiers, and some temple guards sent by the chief priests and the Pharisees. Moreover, they were armed and carried lanterns and torches is literally “with lanterns and torches and weapons.” In the Greek text this entire clause follows the verb “comes there.” Most modern English translations restructure this complex sentence. However, Revised Standard Version, attempting to follow the word order of the Greek, sounds as if Judas were the one who brought the lanterns and torches and weapons (“So Judas, procuring a band of soldiers and some officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, went there with lanterns and torches and weapons.”) Lanterns and torches are mentioned only in John’s account.

A literal translation of the first part of verse 3 may be misleading, for it may imply that Judas first went to the garden and later took along a group of Roman soldiers. The situation is further complicated by the fact that the temple guards are described as having been sent by the chief priests and Pharisees, and their assignment to this task must have taken place before Judas lead them to the garden. The fact that the syntactic order and the temporal order of events do not match may require some readjustment in structure, for example, “The chief priests and Pharisees sent some temple guards to accompany Judas. There was also a group of Roman soldiers, and Judas lead them to the garden.” It is unlikely that Judas himself was armed, and therefore one may translate “The soldiers and guards were armed and carried lanterns and torches.” In translating were armed one may say “they had their swords” or “they carried their weapons.”

John is the only one of the four Gospels to mention Roman soldiers in connection with the arrest of Jesus. The Greek word translated a group of Roman soldiers (New English Bible “a detachment of soldiers”; Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch and Barclay “Roman soldiers”) is a technical military term (translated “cohort” by many) referring to the tenth part of a legion. Even though the full complement of a cohort was six hundred men, the actual number varied considerably sometimes there were as few as two hundred. For that reason, it is better to use a generic term, such as “group” or “detachment,” rather than the technical term “cohort.” Out of this larger group apparently only a smaller detachment of soldiers was sent along with an officer in command (see verse 12).

The word translated temple guards is the same word translated “guards” in 7.32 (see there) The temple guards were no doubt Jewish, but the Roman soldiers were Gentiles.

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of John. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1980. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .