Exegesis:

kai ēn autō kechrēmatismenon ‘it had been revealed to him.’

chrēmatizō ‘to impart a divine revelation’; the revelation may be a promise (as here) or a warning (Mt. 2.12, 22).

mē idein thanaton ‘that he should not see death,’ with auton ‘he’ (lit. ‘him’) understood from autō ‘to him.’ ‘To see death’ is a well known Old Testament phrase for ‘to experience death,’ i.e. ‘to die’ (cf. Ps. 89.48; Acts 2.27; 13.35, 37).

prin[ē] an idē ton Christon kuriou ‘before he had seen the anointed one of the Lord.’ The repetition of idein ‘to see’ is intentional; the aorist idē has here the function of a pluperfect. The expression Christos kuriou ‘the anointed one of the Lord’ is the Greek translation of a well known Hebrew expression (cf. 1 Sam. 24.6 and 10 (in LXX vv. 7 and 11); 26.9, 11, 16, 23; Lam. 4.20), referring to the king of Israel or Judah, as one who has been anointed by or on behalf of the Lord. For the term Christos cf. on v. 11.

Translation:

It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit. It may be necessary to recast the structure, and/or to describe the concept ‘to reveal,’ cf. ‘(the) H. Sp. had caused him to know hidden-things of God’ (Sranan Tongo), ‘(the) H. Sp. had given him a divine announcement’ (Bahasa Indonesia KB), ‘there had been a word of God to him by-means-of (the) H. Sp.’ (Balinese); or, making explicit the implied direct discourse, ‘the H. Sp. had revealed (or simply, said) to him, “You will not…” .’ It may be preferable to use a pronoun instead of a repetitive ‘Holy Spirit’ at so short a distance.

See death … see Christ. This play on words, using ‘to see’ first in its metaphorical, next in its literal sense, is possible in several languages, e.g. English, Dutch, Sinhala, Toraja-Sa’dan. Elsewhere it is unacceptable and ineffective, because ‘to see death’ is unidiomatic. Hence many languages have to render this phrase by ‘experience death’ (Bahasa Indonesia, similarly Thai, lit. ‘meet death,’ and Dravidian languages, lit. ‘obtain death’), or simply, ‘die’ (e.g. in Sranan Tongo, Tboli), all having to use a natural equivalent at the cost of some stylistic loss. Javanese attempts to steer a middle course, ‘to experience death … to experience to see Christ.’ In some cases a shift to a roughly synonymous verb may give the opportunity to preserve the play on words, cf. ‘to know death … to know Christ.’

The Lord’s Christ, or, “the Lord’s Messiah” (New English Bible). To express the meaningful relationship between the two titles one may have to use ‘originating from’ (Balinese), ‘who starts/comes from’ (Tboli, Kekchi), ‘(who is) sent/appointed by,’ cf. ‘whom the Lord must send’ (Kannada); or, taking one’s starting point from the Hebrew descriptive phrase mentioned in Exegesis, ‘the-One anointed-by the-Lord’ (Bahasa Indonesia RC), ‘the One the Lord has (caused to be) anointed.’

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.