Good News Translation translates the verb said at the beginning of this verse as “gave another order.” This is fitting for the context and may be a good model for other languages. This order is apparently given to a limited group of messengers. They, in turn, will spread the news to all the people of Israel.

This verse contains an embedded quotation within the words of Saul. That is, he gives the messengers the precise words that they are to say to the rest of the Israelites. Good News Translation is a good model for avoiding the quotation within another larger quotation.

Disperse yourselves among the people: or “Spread out among the troops” (New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh).

Do not sin … by eating with the blood: see the comments on verse 32. Good News Translation makes explicit that they are not to eat “meat with blood in it.”

At the end of the verse, the writer reports that every one … brought his ox. But the beginning of the verse states that the people were to bring sheep also. Because of this apparent contradiction, some interpreters follow the Septuagint and change the Hebrew from “his ox” to “that which.” New Jerusalem Bible, for example, says “Each individual brought what he happened to have that night.”

Critique Textuelle de l’Ancien Testament gives a {C} rating to the Masoretic Text and suggests that the Hebrew is elliptical; that is, though it mentions only the ox, it includes both ox and sheep.

With him: literally “in [or, by] his hand” (so Fox). Probably the intended meaning is that the people led their animals by hand. Revised English Bible says “each man came, driving his own ox.”

That night: some follow the Septuagint in omitting these words (so Klein), or they change the text slightly to read “to the LORD” in place of that night (so New American Bible). But neither of these changes is recommended.

Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on the First and Second Books of Samuel, Volume 1. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2001. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .