But now, since it was nearly the middle of the tenth hour: The conjunction But may be omitted (so Contemporary English Version). The middle of the tenth hour refers to about 3:30 in the afternoon (15:30 hours). A good way to render this phrase is “the middle of the afternoon” (Contemporary English Version).

The person who was in charge of the invitations, seeing that the guests were assembled, approached the king and nudged him: We have not been told until this point, but the king planned on making the death of the Jews a time of celebration, and had sent out invitations for people to come and celebrate with him the death of the Jews. It does not seem there were a large number of guests (see verse 16), and they were evidently supposed to arrive after the massacre, not in time to see it. By midafternoon, with the king still sleeping, the crowd was arriving, so the official in charge of the invitations, realizing that the guests had all arrived, went to the king and gently tried to wake him up (nudged him).

Here is a possible model for this verse:

• By midafternoon the official in charge of the celebrations realized that the king’s invited guests had all arrived. So he went to the king and gently tried to wake him.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on 3-4 Maccabees. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2018. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.