Exegesis:
hupolabōn ho Iēsous eipen lit. ‘taking up (scil. the question) Jesus said.’ The answer to the question comes in the form of a story. Elsewhere hupolambanō means ‘to assume’ (cf. 7.43).
anthrōpos tis katebainen apo Ierousalēm eis Ierichō ‘a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho,’ imperfect tense. For katabainō cf. on 2.51.
kai lēstais periepesen ‘and fell into the hands of robbers,’ aorist tense, indicating a punctiliar event.
lēstēs ‘robber,’ ‘bandit.’
peripiptō (†, cf. v. 36, empiptō) with dative ‘to fall into the hands of.’
hoi kai ekdusantes auton kai plēgas epithentes apēlthon aphentes hēmithanē ‘who after stripping him and after inflicting blows went off, leaving him half dead,’ kai after the relative pronoun serves to focus the attention on what follows (cf. e.g. Acts 1.11).
ekduō ‘to strip off (clothes).’
plēgē (also 12.48) ‘blow,’ ‘stroke.’
epitithēmi (cf. on 4.40) here ‘to inflict.’
aphiēmi ‘to leave (behind).’
hēmithanēs ‘half dead.’
Translation:
Replied, or, “took this up and said” (The Four Gospels – a New Translation), ‘continued-the-discussion, saying’ (Javanese, a verb lit. meaning ‘to put-an-extension-to,’ then, ‘to continue an activity started by someone else’).
A man was going down from …, introductory clause, cf. on 8.4. For the verb cf. on “went up” in 2.4. Jericho is some 20 miles from Jerusalem, the road ascending about 3000 feet from the neighbourhood of Bethany to the entrance of the plain of the Jordan.
He fell among robbers, or, ‘he accidentally met robbers’ (Tagalog), ‘he-had-the-ill-luck to be-attacked (or, he was-set-upon) by robbers’ (Javanese, Sundanese); or in active construction, ‘on the way robbers surprised/attacked him.’ Robber, or, “bandit” (Phillips), ‘one-who-murders-to-rob’ (Toraja-Sa’dan). In some cases one term covers both ‘robbers,’ i.e. those who take away possessions by force, and ‘thieves,’ who do so by stealth, e.g. in Sranan Tongo, or in Tae’ (etymologically ‘one-who-lifts-up’).
Stripped, or, ‘cleaned-out,’ ‘plundered’ (Low Malay, lit. ‘took-away all he had,’ and Sranan Tongo, lit. ‘stole pulled from his hand’). Beat, probably with sticks or clubs.
Leaving him (i.e. letting him remain there) half dead, or, ‘they left him lying (on-the-ground, or, neglected) half/nearly dead’ (cf. Nieuwe Vertaling, Javanese, Bahasa Indonesia RC), ‘leaving him like-one-dead (lit. dead-dead) on the road’ (Sranan Tongo; a similar form in Batak Toba). In Conob the idiom for “half dead” is ‘whirling in his head.’
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.