Exegesis:

epetaxen autois anaklithēnai pantas ‘he commanded them all to recline’ (the verb ‘command’ here takes the infinitive ‘recline’ as direct object, while pantas ‘all’ is the subject of the infinitive; autois ‘them’ is the indirect object).

epitassō (cf. 1.27) ‘command,’ ‘order.’

anaklinō (only here in Mark) in the active is causative ‘cause to lie down’; in the passive it means ‘lie down,’ ‘recline,’ ‘sit’ (here equivalent to anapiptō in the next verse).

sumposia sumposia ‘in groups,’ ‘in parties’: for this distributive use cf. duo duo ‘by twos’ in 6.7 and prasiai prasiai in the next verse.

sumposion (only here in the N.T.) meant originally ‘a drinking party’ and then, by extension, the party itself, the guests (cf. Abbott-Smith).

epi tō chlōrō chortō ‘upon the green grass’: it is generally assumed that this added detail indicates that it was the spring season.

chlōros (only here in Mark) ‘green.’

chortos (cf. 4.28) ‘grass.’

Translation:

Commanded them must be followed in many languages by direct discourse, e.g. ‘commanded them, You sit down….’

Though Greek has ‘reclined,’ the normal position assumed in eating, one must use whatever is culturally acceptable in the receptor language in question (note the adaptation to English sit).

The size of the companies is explained in the following verse. Here one may use ‘groups’ or as in some languages ‘parts.’ The entire distributive expression may be rendered as ‘he commanded them, You sit down, one group here and another group there on the green grass.’

It is not sufficient to ask for the indigenous word for ‘green’ and then assume that one can say ‘green grass,’ for the color of grass may be designated by another color word, e.g. grass is called ‘yellow’ in Navajo. That is to say, the word which usually designates yellow also includes chartreuse and grass-color. The word for ‘green,’ used for example in speaking of green trees such as pines, is a different term.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of Mark. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1961. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .