Here as earlier in this chapter, the people means “the troops” (Revised English Bible and New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh) or “the soldiers” (Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente).

On the terms for sheep and oxen, see the comments at 12.3 and verse 3 above.

The best of the things devoted to destruction: all of the people and animals were supposed to be destroyed (see verse 3), and nothing was to be taken as spoil. Good News Translation does not preserve the sense of the Hebrew that the animals that were taken as spoil were also things devoted to destruction. Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente says “the best part of that which was supposed to have been destroyed.”

New Jerusalem Bible provides one model for maintaining this aspect of meaning: “And from the booty the people have taken the best sheep and cattle of what was under the curse of destruction only to sacrifice them to Yahweh your God in Gilgal.”

Your God: see the comments on verse 15.

In Gilgal: Saul, Samuel, and the troops are now in Gilgal, so Good News Translation makes this explicit by adding the word “here.”

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 .