Exegesis:
genomenēs de hēmeras ‘when day came.’ The phrase does not necessarily imply that the healing lasted the whole night.
exelthōn eporeuthē ‘he left and went.’ exelthōn probably refers to leaving the town.
eis erēmon topon ‘to a lonely spot.’
kai hoi ochloi epezētoun auton ‘and the crowds searched for him.’ The imperfect tense epezētoun is durative, cf. “kept seeking” (Plummer). For ochlos cf. on 3.7.
epizēteō (also 12.30) ‘to search for,’ ‘to try to find.’
kai ēlthon heōs autou lit. ‘they came as far as him,’ i.e. ‘to where he was.’ ēlthon is aorist because it refers to a punctiliar event as different from epezētoun and kateichon (see next note).
heōs here ‘as far as.’
kai kateichon auton ‘they tried to keep him.’ The imperfect tense is conative.
katechō ‘to hold back,’ ‘to hold up,’ here with the implication of preventing from going away. This implication is explicitly stated in what follows.
tou mē poreuesthai ap’ autōn ‘that he would not leave them.’ Articular infinitive in the genitive after a verb of hindering to indicate the intended result.
Translation:
When it was day, preferably, ‘when day came,’ is rendered by various idiomatic expressions, e.g. ‘when it-sunned’ (Tae’), ‘time of sun-rays’ (Kele), ‘when the sun is coming-out’ (Kituba), ‘when day dawned (lit. sprouted)’ (Marathi), ‘when space (referring to air or land) became white’ (Tzeltal), ‘when it/day became light’ (Cuyono, Batak Toba); other possibilities are, ‘early next morning,’ ‘when darkness had passed.’
Lonely place, or, ‘uninhabited place,’ ‘place where there are no people living,’ ‘place where people seldom come’; in some cases one term covers ‘silent/quiet’ and ‘lonely.’
The people is used here in its generic meaning, see on 1.17; cf. also on “multitudes” in 3.7, and references.
Sought him and came to him, or, ‘went in search of him and (finally) came to where he was,’ cf. also, ‘were-tracking (from a noun meaning ‘footmark’) until they reached him’ (Javanese). Some versions (e.g. The Four Gospels – a New Translation, New English Bible, Bible de Jérusalem, Bahasa Indonesia RC, Sundanese) subordinate the second clause to what follows, ‘and when they came upon him they would have….’ Came to him may better be rendered, ‘encountered him’ (Bahasa Indonesia RC), ‘found him’ (Tae’ 1933).
Would have kept him from leaving them, or, ‘tried to hold Him back that He would not leave them’ (Nieuwe Vertaling), ‘tried to keep him, saying, “Do not leave us” ,’ both reflecting the rather redundant wording of the Greek; or simply, ‘tried to keep him with them,’ “did their best to make him stay with them” (The Four Gospels – a New Translation).
Quoted with permission from Reiling, J. and Swellengrebel, J.L. A Handbook on the Gospel of Luke. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1971. For this and other handbooks for translators see here . Make sure to also consult the Handbook on the Gospel of Mark for parallel or similar verses.