Exegesis:

all’ ouchi erei autō lit. ‘but will he not rather say…?’ with a shift to a different type of interrogative clause.

hetoimason ti deipnēsō lit. ‘prepare what I will eat,’ i.e. ‘prepare something for me to eat.’ The aorist tense of hetoimason refers to the punctiliar act that precedes the more durative act of serving at the table (diakonei present tense).

deipneō (also 22.20) ‘to have a meal’ (deipnon, cf. on 14.12), i.e. ‘to eat,’ ‘to dine.’

perizōsamenos diakonei moi ‘gird yourself and serve me.’ For perizōnnumi (here in the middle voice with reflexive meaning) cf. on 12.35. For diakoneō cf. on 4.39.

heōs phagō kai piō either ‘while I eat and drink,’ or, ‘till I have finished eating and drinking,’ preferably the latter. Here eating and drinking refers to a full meal.

kai meta tauta phagesai kai piesai su ‘and after that, i.e. after you have served me, you will eat and drink yourself.’ su is emphatic by position.

Translation:

The verse indicates the negative answer anticipated by the rhetorical question in v. 7, but by implication only; it may be better to make this explicit, e.g. by inserting, ‘No, you won’t!,’ “Of course not!” (Good News Translation). V. 8 itself is a rhetorical question anticipating a positive answer, sometimes better rendered as a statement, cf. e.g. “Instead, you say to him…” (Good News Translation).

Gird yourself, as a servant does who is to wait on his master at table. Some cultural equivalents are, ‘wrap your waist-cloth about you,’ as is obligatory when approaching a person of superior rank (Balinese), ‘have-the-upper-garment-tied-together-on-the-breast,’ as one does when bringing an offering (Batak Toba), ‘wear clothes’ (Kele), cf. also, “dress yourself” (An American Translation). The rendering may have to differ from the one in 12.35, because the expression is used there metaphorically, and the circumstances envisaged as the basis of the metaphor are different.

For serve see on 12.37c, for eat and drink on 5.30.

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.