He courageously ran into the midst of the phalanx to reach it: Translators may wish to look back at verses 35-38 to get a picture of what Eleazar was doing. Good News Bible is good. The word “battalion” in Good News Bible is not in the text, but is implied. In modern warfare a battalion refers to a unit of a particular strength, so it may be taken to represent the group of a thousand assigned to each elephant (verse 35). These were the soldiers assigned to protect the beast. So it will be helpful to indicate this in the translation; for example, “Determined to reach that huge elephant, he ran right into the middle of the group of foot soldiers protecting it.”

He killed men right and left, and they parted before him on both sides: Eleazar was probably using a broadsword, swinging it from one side to the other and back with arms fully extended. So we may say “As he charged in, he killed men all around him, and the enemy soldiers let him through [or, moved out of his way].”

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.