Then he began to attack and went into battle with his forces: This sentence properly belongs with verse 66, as Good News Bible has it. Revised Standard Version has the pronoun he, referring to Jonathan, with a footnote indicating that the pronoun in Greek is “they.” As indicated above, we believe “they” is correct; the writer is referring to Jonathan and his forces (the pronoun his is not in the Greek)—not only the few men he took with him from the fort, but also the local tribesmen whose help he had obtained. To attack and went into battle may be combined by rendering this sentence as “Then he took these soldiers and began to fight Bacchides and his army.”

And Simon and his men sallied out from the city and set fire to the machines of war: While Bacchides’ army was busy fending off an attack from the rear, Simon led his men out of the fort and set fire to the siege platforms, which would have been fairly close to the walls. They could set the fires while on their way out to where Jonathan and his soldiers were fighting Bacchides. Good News Bible renders sallied out as “rushed,” but the Greek does not justify this. A better model for the whole sentence is “Meanwhile, Simon and his men came out of the fort and set fire to the siege platforms.”

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.