Exegesis:

kai ēn ēdē hōsei hōra hektē ‘by now it was about the sixth hour,’ i.e. ‘noon.’

skotos egeneto eph’ hōlēn tēn gēn ‘darkness came over the whole land.’ gē may denote the earth, or the country of Palestine, preferably the latter.

heōs hōras enatēs ‘(lasting) till the ninth hour,’ i.e. three o’clock in the afternoon.

(V. 45) tou hēliou eklipontos ‘after the sun had failed,’ i.e. ‘grown dark.’ It is possible, though less probable to render, ‘after the sun had been eclipsed,’ cf. Plummer.

eschisthē de to katapetasma tou naou meson ‘and the veil of the temple was rent down the middle.’ No material or chronological connexion with what precedes is indicated. It may have taken place during, or after the three hour period of darkness, presumably after. For schizō cf. on 5.36; for naos cf. on 1.9. meson lit. ‘(in the) middle,’ goes with katapetasma and indicates where the rending took place.

Translation:

The sixth hour … the ninth hour. Where the Jewish way of indicating the hours of the day is unknown one may use a literal rendering and add the explanatory phrase ‘after sunrise,’ or shift to the equivalent receptor language idiom. In Bali the period of daylight was traditionally divided into eight parts (dauh); hence, ‘dauh four … dauh six’; nowadays, however, a rendering in accordance with modern Western terminology is probably preferable, ‘twelve (at noon) … three o’clock (in the afternoon).’

There was darkness over the whole land or, ‘the whole country became dark, or, was darkened.’

(V. 45) While the sun’s light failed (or, ‘was lost,’ Ekari). The phrase is sometimes better placed before the reference to ‘darkness over the whole land,’ cf. Good News Translation. Possible rewordings are, “the sun stopped shining” (Good News Translation), ‘the sun/day became-dark’ (Toraja-Sa’dan).

For the curtain of the temple (preferably “before the sanctuary”, An American Translation) was torn in two.

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.