Then: a logical rather than a temporal transition word may be more natural in some languages at this point.

Remain here: perhaps David was hoping that Uriah would weaken and spend the night with his wife if given another day. If the direct quotation needs to be made indirect, translators may consider saying “Then David told Uriah to stay in Jerusalem for another day and then he would let him return [to the battle].”

Today also, and tomorrow …: in some languages it will be much more natural to say “stay here until tomorrow and then I will send you back…” or possibly “spend another night here….”

I will let you depart: while Uriah did not specifically ask to go back to the battle, that is the sense of all that he says in the previous verse. The word translated depart does not simply mean to go away from the presence of the king but implies going back to the war zone. In some languages it may be wise to supply this information by saying something like “I will send you back to the battle” if a direct quotation is used.

So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day, and the next: in Hebrew there is often repetition in the context where an authority gives a command (whether the authority is a king or God himself), and then there is a statement to the effect that the command is obeyed. This shows that every detail of the command was followed. But instead of repeating these words, it may be more natural in some languages to say something like “So Uriah did just exactly as the king had said.”

According to the Masoretic Text, the words and the next are connected to what precedes. The meal mentioned in verse 13 seems to have taken place the next day. According to some manuscripts of the Septuagint and the ancient Syriac, the words and the next are connected to what follows in verse 13 (so New Revised Standard Version, Revised English Bible, New American Bible, New Jerusalem Bible, Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, Osty-Trinquet), in which case the meal mentioned in verse 13 definitely took place the next day. This second way of punctuating the text may be followed, since it does seem to express the intended meaning better than Revised Standard Version or Good News Translation.

Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on the First and Second Books of Samuel, Volume 2. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2001. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .