Exegesis:

tote arxontai legein ‘then they will begin to say,’ cf. on 4.21. arxontai has here no meaning of its own and may go untranslated.

tois oresin … kai tois bounois ‘to the mountains … and to the hills,’ often occurring together as in 3.5, here, however, also personified. This personification is poetic and not mythical.

pesete eph’ hēmas … kalupsate hēmas ‘fall on us … cover us up,’ expressing either a request for protection, or the wish to be killed in order to miss the imminent terror. The latter is preferable, cf. Plummer. kaluptō, cf. on 8.16.

Translation:

If addressing mountains and hills as though they were persons is unacceptable in the receptor language, even in poetical passages, one may have to shift to something like, ‘then they will begin to say, “We should be better as dead as people are when mountains have fallen upon them and hills are covering them” .’

For mountains and hills see on 3.5.

Fall on. A literal rendering may not fit this context; hence e.g. ‘collapse-on’ (Javanese), ‘crash-down hitting’ (Bahasa Indonesia RC), ‘lie-down-on-top-of’ (Tae’), ‘press-down-upon’ (Toraja-Sa’dan); or shifting from the process to its result, ‘put an end to’ (Tzeltal).

Cover, here in the sense of, ‘pile up over,’ ‘form a heap over,’ ‘bury.’

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.