Good News Bible doesn’t separate verses 34-36 from the previous section, and begins here with “In this way.” We strongly advise against this, for Nicanor has nothing to do with those events and this will confuse the reader.

The thrice-accursed Nicanor is a way of describing Nicanor as a vicious sinner. Good News Bible says “the evil Nicanor,” which is acceptable but weak. Goldstein is better with “The heinous sinner Nicanor.” We may also say “Nicanor was an evil sinner.” In Greek Nicanor here is the subject of the verb “reached” in verse 35, but we suggest breaking this long sentence down into more manageable units.

Who had brought the thousand merchants to buy the Jews: See verses 10-11. The Greek has the definite article the in the phrase the thousand merchants, but in English this makes it sound like old information. Nothing has been said previously about the number of merchants, so Good News Bible rightly says “a thousand merchants.” Neither has anything been said earlier about Nicanor taking these slave dealers along with him. In verse 11 he sent word that he would soon have slaves to sell. Therefore we can assume that the Greek word translated brought has the sense of “attracted” in this context. The merchants heard the news, and came to him.

Here is an alternative model for this verse:

• A thousand merchants had come to the evil sinner, Nicanor, thinking they were going to buy some Jewish slaves.

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.