And it happened that over all the city, for almost forty days, there appeared golden-clad horsemen charging through the air: The clause And it happened indicates that the event narrated here happened at the same time as Antiochus’ invasion of Egypt. Goldstein translates “Simultaneously.” We may also say “At that same time.” Good News Bible identifies the city as “Jerusalem,” which is helpful. There appeared is rendered by Good News Bible as “saw visions.” But “saw visions” in a number of languages will be expressed more simply as “saw.” The fact that these horsemen were seen in the sky is a supernatural event. Horsemen or “cavalry” (Good News Bible) refers to soldiers fighting on horseback (see the comments on 1Macc 3.39). Other ways to translate horsemen are “horse soldiers” and “soldiers riding on horses.” Golden-clad horsemen means they were dressed in gold colors. Since these were soldiers, they would have been wearing armor, so Good News Bible has “cavalry troops in gold armor.” Another way to render this is “soldiers with gold armor riding on horses.” Charging means the horses of the soldiers were rushing (galloping) into battle.

In companies fully armed with lances and drawn swords: Companies are military units of a certain number of men. Here the number is unimportant. The point is that they were in orderly array ready to do battle. The idea of companies or “groups” can be introduced in the following verse (see the model there). Lances are spears. Drawn swords means the riders held their swords in their hands, ready for battle.

Here is a model for this verse:

• At that same time, for nearly forty days people all over Jerusalem saw visions of [or, saw] troops on horseback, wearing gold armor, and charging across the sky with swords and spears ready for battle [or, to fight].

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.