Now the men in the citadel: Now is better rendered “Meanwhile” (Good News Bible, Contemporary English Version) or even “At the time that Antiochus died.” Some of the men in the citadel were Gentiles, but many were renegade Jews, Jews who did not obey the Law of Moses (see the comments on 1Macc 1.33-34). This becomes apparent in verse 21 when some of them escaped and went to King Antiochus to complain what their fellow countrymen, the Jews, had done to them. Good News Bible translates this phrase as “the enemies in the fort,” and Contemporary English Version has “some enemies were still in the Jerusalem fortress.”

Kept hemming Israel in around the sanctuary indicates that these men were apparently preventing the Jews from having free access to the Temple, not necessarily blockading the Temple. So we may translate “kept trying to prevent the Jews from entering the Temple.”

They were trying in every way to harm them and strengthen the Gentiles: They were always trying to hurt the Jewish cause and to support the Gentile cause. They did what they could to weaken the Jews over against the Syrians.

An alternative model for this verse is:

• Meanwhile [or, At the time that King Antiochus died] the enemies in the fort in Jerusalem kept trying to prevent the Jews from entering the Temple. They did everything they could to hurt them, and to help the Gentiles.

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.