Exegesis:
epeblepsen epi tēn tapeinōsin tēs doulēs autou ‘he looked upon the low position of his slave.’
epiblepō epi with accusative (also 9.38) ‘to look upon with care,’ with the intention of doing something about it; here the verb implies that God has changed or is about to change Mary’s humble situation.
tapeinōsis † ‘low position,’ ‘humiliation’ as a state of being.
idou gar, ‘for behold,’ introduces here a clause that describes what will be the outcome of God’s dealing with Mary.
apo tou nun ‘from now on,’ ‘henceforth’; the expression does not imply that the ‘now’ is the very moment of Mary’s words.
makariousin me ‘will called me blessed.’
makarizō ‘to call someone makarios,’ cf. on v. 45 makaria.
pasai hai geneai ‘all (subsequent) generations.’
genea ‘those descended from a common ancestor,’ ‘family,’ ‘race’ or ‘those born (and living) in the same age,’ ‘generation.’
Translation:
Regarded, or, “tenderly … looked upon” (New English Bible), ‘his eye looked on’ (Sranan Tongo), ‘cast-a-kind-glance (lit. a side look)’ (Telugu), all keeping close to the metaphor of the original. Some non-metaphorical renderings are, ‘placed attention on’ (Kannada), ‘is concerned about’ (Thai), ‘found’ (Ekari), “deigned to notice” (Phillips); for a shift to another metaphor cf. ‘set his hand under’ (Vai, an idiom for ‘had concern for’).
The low estate of his handmaiden, or, reorganizing the syntactic pattern, ‘his lowly servant,’ “his servant, humble as she is” (New English Bible); or, ‘that the condition of his servant was (a) humble (one).’ In some languages the first person reference has to be made explicit, e.g. ‘I the-one-who-works-for-him who-am-not-great’ (Apache), ‘me his humble servant’ (Ekari); cf. also Good News Translation, Bible en français courant. For his handmaiden cf. on v. 38. In several languages ‘servant/slave’ can do duty as a polite substitute for the pronoun of the first person, but in this verse the term is meant to convey more than mere polite humility. The combination of a pronoun of the first person with an appositional phrase (see above) may help to bring this out.
All generations. In the meaning of ‘people of the same age’ the word ‘generation’ may be rendered by, ‘(people of one) layer’ (Chol, Ekari, Tae,’ Batak Toba), ‘one storey of growing’ (Highland Totonac, using a term also denoting a storey or floor of a building), ‘people born/living,’ followed by an indication of time (Dan, Highland Puebla Nahuatl, Southern Bobo Madaré, Amganad Ifugao, Sranan Tongo); some languages are as English in that one term covers both the meaning ‘people of common descent’ and the meaning ‘people born or living in the same age,’ e.g. Bahasa Indonesia, Javanese. The rendering of ‘all generations,’ i.e. those who are or will be born and living in this or subsequent ages, can usually be built on these and similar expressions, cf. e.g. ‘all people in all time’ (Sranan Tongo), ‘all descendants of man’ (Balinese, Apache), ‘all those-who-will-be-being-born as-time-goes-on’ (Navajo); or, changing the syntactic structure, ‘doing-in-succession people will…’ (Toraja-Sa’dan, shifting to a verb related to its word for ‘descent/descendant’).
Will call me blessed, or, ‘a blessed one/woman,’ or, ‘will say that I am (a) blessed (one/woman)’; for “blessed” cf. on v. 45. The aspect is continuative, or repetitive, cf. Toraja-Sa’dan, which combines the main verb with a verbal form meaning ‘to mention-again-and-again.’ Some other renderings are, ‘will praise me, calling me “blessed” ’ (Kannada), ‘will call my name (i.e. will honour me) highly (lit. with good)’ (Sranan Tongo); ‘will mention my happiness/peace’ (Uab Meto); or an expression in direct discourse, e.g. ‘a woman who-is-blessed she-is, they-will-say-about me’ (Apache, similarly in Navajo).
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.