He struck down Odomera and his brothers and the sons of Phasiron in their tents: There are at least three problems in this verse:

1. Is the Greek verb translated struck down the correct word?
2. Who are Odomera and his brothers and the sons of Phasiron?
3. Why does the next verse begin with two Greek verbs in the third person plural (Revised Standard Version translates “he” instead of “they”)?

We approach the problems in reverse order. (3) The Greek text is correct with the verbs in the third person plural. The reference is not to Jonathan alone, but to Jonathan along with the people named here. (2) We can only guess that Odomera and Phasiron are couple of small Arab tribes, but the question is whether they were friendly to Bacchides or to Jonathan. They appear to have joined Jonathan against Bacchides, but did they do it because Jonathan forced them to (so Good News Bible), or because they were his allies to begin with? This depends on the answer to (1). It is hard to make sense of the narrative with the verb phrase struck down. The idea of a few Jews going out and overcoming a couple of tribes and forcing them to join them in fighting Bacchides is hard to believe. Just as hard to believe is the story presented by Revised Standard Version and New English Bible. In these versions Jonathan took his small band out behind enemy lines, attacked a couple of Arab tribes for no apparent reason, and then got back to the business of fighting Bacchides—with only the small number of men he took from the fort with him. Goldstein and Doran make a strong case that there is a textual problem here, and that the proper verb, found in two Greek manuscripts, is one meaning “ordered” or “summoned,” a verb that very closely resembles the word for struck down and could be easily mistaken for it. If this is the right word, the story becomes clear. Jonathan snuck out of the fort with his few men without Bacchides’ soldiers seeing him. He got a couple of friendly Arab tribes to join him, and then went and attacked Bacchides from the rear. This, incidentally, is consistent with the account given by the Jewish historian Josephus.

Here is our suggested model for this verse:

• Jonathan found the Odomera and Phasiron tribes, and called on them to join him.*
* Some manuscripts called on them to join him; others struck them down.

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.