Now Timothy, who had been defeated by the Jews before: Goldstein understands the Greek word translated before not to mean “previously” but “earlier of two,” so his rendering for this clause is “Timotheus (the first of the two by that name to be defeated by the Jews).” Translators who wish may certainly follow Goldstein, but our suggestion is to take the more conservative course by following Revised Standard Version, Good News Bible, and all other versions. A model that does this is “A man named Timothy, whom the Jews had defeated once before.”

Gathered a tremendous force of mercenaries and collected the cavalry from Asia in no small number: A tremendous force of may be rendered “a huge number of.” For mercenaries see the comments on verse 14. Most Greek manuscripts actually have “horses” rather than cavalry, but we may assume in this context that the meaning is the same; Timothy collected horses for his soldiers to ride. Asia is used here, as in 1Macc 8.6, to refer to the Syrian Empire. An alternative model for the first sentence of this verse is “A man named Timothy, whom the Jews had defeated once before, gathered together a huge number of soldiers from many countries, along with a large number of horse soldiers from Syria.”

He came on, intending to take Judea by storm: By storm may be rendered “by force of arms” (Goldstein) or “by armed attack” (Good News Bible). Compare the comments on this phrase at 2Macc 5.11. Good News Bible provides a helpful model for this whole sentence.

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.