We recommend that translators begin a new paragraph here as in Good News Bible.

Then they fortified the city of David with a great strong wall and strong towers: The pronoun They refers to the Mysian commander and his soldiers, not to Antiochus and his army as in Good News Bible. It is not clear what the author means by the city of David. At first the city of David referred to the oldest settlement in Jerusalem, on the hill south of the Temple mount (see, for example, 2~Sam 5.9), but in later usage it was used to refer to larger areas of the city. Instead of the city of David, Good News Bible has “the area north of the Temple.” This is in accordance with the theory of some scholars, such as Goldstein and Starcky, that the citadel built by the Mysians was north of the Temple. Other scholars believe it must have been on the hill west of the Temple. It could not have been south of the Temple, since there is nowhere in that area where it could have been placed to overlook the city. Translators have several options for rendering the city of David:

a. Translate the phrase literally.
b. Translate the phrase in the same way as in 2~Sam 5.9.
c. Decide where the citadel was actually located, and translate in accordance with its location, as Good News Bible has done.
d. Find some other way of describing where the citadel was built, such as “the oldest part of the city,” “on high ground,” or “near the Temple.”

We prefer option d (see the model below). Towers were defenses built along the wall at intervals. They were somewhat taller than the wall and jutted out from the wall. This allowed space for more soldiers to stand while defending the wall. An alternative model for the first clause of this verse is “The general and his soldiers erected strong high walls on high ground in the city and made strong places on top of the walls.”

And it became their citadel: Their citadel refers to the fortified structure made by the Mysian soldiers to overlook the city. It was not simply a guard post; it was large enough to house the soldiers posted there (compare 1Macc 3.45), and capturing it required siege tactics (1Macc 6.18-20). “Fort” (Good News Bible) is a close equivalent, but in some languages it may be rendered “a strong place to protect them [the soldiers]” or “a strong place where the soldiers would be safe.”

An alternative model for this verse is:

• Then they [or, the Mysian commander and his army] built a fort in the city on high ground, with strong walls and towers.

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.