Exegesis:
megalunei ‘magnifies.’
megalunō (also v. 58) lit. ‘to make large,’ here used in the figurative sense, cf. “extols” (The Modern Speech New Testament), “exalts” (Twentieth Century New Testament).
hē psuchē mou ‘my soul.’
psuchē ‘soul,’ ‘life,’ is here used in the sense of the seat of the inner life of man, his feelings and emotions, and is parallel with pneuma (v. 47).
(V. 47) kai ēgalliasen to pneuma mou ‘and my spirit rejoices’; the aorist tense after the present tense of megalunei is probably due to the influence of Hebrew poetry and need not affect the tense of the translation.
agalliaō ‘to be overjoyed,’ ‘to exult,’ always has a religious connotation: a joy or rejoicing due to the Holy Spirit or brought forth by an act of God (as here).
pneuma ‘spirit.’ As to a differentiation of psuchē and pneuma, psuchē (in v. 46) expresses what is man’s own inner nature and pneuma the self that is not so much his own as given to him from God.
epi tō theō tō sōtēri mou ‘in God my saviour’; epi followed by dative denotes here God as the origin of the rejoicing.
sōtēr (also 2.11) lit. ‘he who saves’ (from sōzō ‘to save’), here of God, and therefore, in accordance with Old Testament usage, less a title than an agent noun.
Translation:
Languages differ in the entities regarded as centre of emotions, and in any one language not all emotions are associated with the same centre. For some renderings used see on v. 47. In several cases it is better to use a simple reference to the first person, cf. ‘Great my praising the Lord’ (Tboli), or to say something like, ‘I … in my soul’ (Kituba), ‘I … with (all) my heart.’
Magnifies is often rendered by a declarative verbal derivation of ‘great/high/excellent,’ such as ‘tells-about-the-greatness-of’ (Navajo, Apache), ‘considers … great/noble’ (Marathi). Other possible renderings are, ‘honours’ (Kituba), ‘glorifies’ (Malay, the same term as renders Gr. doxazō, e.g. in 5.25).
(V. 47) My spirit. The variation of the pair “soul”—“spirit” has primarily stylistic function here, forming an important feature of the parallelistic verse structure. One should, therefore, preferably use two synonymous terms for a person’s emotional centre, cf. e.g. the following renderings of the pair, “heart” – “spirit” (An American Translation, similarly Kituba), “heart” – “soul” (Good News Translation, similarly Tae’ 1933), ‘soul’ – ‘insides’ (Sranan Tongo), ‘that-which-stands-within’ – ‘the spirit-(lit. air)-which-stands-within’ (Navajo), ‘heart’ – ‘that-which-stands-within’ (Apache), ‘breath/wind-of-life’ – ‘spirit’ (Kannada, Telugu). In some languages, however, it proves impossible to differentiate.
Rejoices in God my Saviour. The preposition “in” rendered literally, may easily be misunderstood; the relationship is better expressed by ‘over,’ ‘because of,’ or by shifting to a construction like, ‘God my Saviour gives me joy (or, makes me glad).’ God my Saviour, or, ‘God who saves me.’ The agent noun occurs also in 2.11. The verb ‘to save’ (also occurring in 1.71; 6.9; 7.50; 8.12; 9.24; 13.23; 18.26; 19.10; 23.35, 37, 39; and cf. “salvation” in 1.69, 77; 2.30; 3.6; 19.9) basically means ‘to preserve or deliver from harm,’ such as danger, illness, death. Especially in the perfective and passive forms the focus may shift from the process to its positive result, a state of safety and well-being. In figurative extension of meaning the verb is used to indicate the preservation from (the cause of) eternal death, or positively, the grant of eternal life and the ensuing blessedness. Used in this meaning the explicit or implicit agent is God, Jesus, or faith (in God or Jesus). The receptor language rarely has one term covering the various meanings discussed. In some languages there is a danger that ‘God’ (here) and ‘Lord’ (v. 46) are understood as referring to two different entities; hence in Tboli one has to render the clause by, ‘my breath/spirit is-happy in his (i.e. the Lord’s) causing-to-have-life me.’
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.