Exegesis:

pneuma kuriou ep’ eme ‘the Spirit of the Lord is upon me,’ cf. on 2.25. The Spirit is the Spirit of prophetic inspiration, cf. Hos. 9.7; Micah 3.8; Ezek. 2.2; 3.24; 11.5.

hou heineken echrisen me ‘because he has anointed me.’

hou heineken lit. ‘because of the fact that,’ with the implication that the purpose of echrisen me ‘he anointed me’ is to bring about what the main clause refers to, as often in the Septuagint. heineken (here and 18.29), heneken (9.24; 21.12) or heneka (6.22) ‘because of,’ ‘on account of.’

chriō ‘to anoint,’ in the New Testament only in figurative meaning. In view of the fulfilment to which v. 21 refers it appears that Jesus understands the descending of the Spirit upon him (3.22) as his being anointed with the Spirit.

euaggelisasthai ptōchois ‘to preach good news to poor people.’ For euaggelizomai cf. on 1.19. The phrase, which is dependent upon echrisen, serves to indicate God’s commission implied in the anointing with the Spirit.

ptōchos lit. ‘begging,’ hence ‘poor.’ Here as often in the Old Testament it does not denote people who are only economically poor but people who have little or nothing to expect from the circumstances which determine their life and are therefore dependent upon God. The omission of the article before ptōchois (as before the other nouns in this verse) shows that the reference is not to one specific group but to people who are in this situation generally.

apestalken me ‘he has sent me’ cf. on 1.19. On this clause depend the subsequent infinitives kēruxai (twice) and aposteilai.

kēruxai aichmalōtois aphesin kai tuphlois anablepsin ‘to proclaim release for captives and recovery of sight for blind.’ For kērussō cf. on 3.3; for aphesis cf. on 1.77.

aichmalōtos ‘captive,’ refers in Is. 61.1 perhaps to people who have been sold as slaves because of their debts and who were set free in the year of jubilee (see below), and may be taken here as referring to all people who are in some form of slavery, including that of sin.

tuphlos ‘blind,’ here refers to blind people as socially weak and personally unhappy, cf. 14.13, 21. They are among the specific objects of Jesus’ Messianic ministry of healing (cf. 7.21, 22 where also the ptōchoi are mentioned as those who receive the good news!).

anablepsis ‘recovery of sight,’ or, with a shift from the abstract to the concrete, “new eyes” (The Four Gospels – a New Translation).

aposteilai tethrausmenous en aphesei ‘to let go, or to send away, the down-trodden in liberty.’ Here apostellō is used in a weaker meaning (‘to let go’ without indication of purpose or commission). en aphesei does not refer (as does aphesin above) to the release of prisoners but to a freedom in a social and religious sense which is the opposite of the state to which tethrausmenous (see below) refers.

tethrausmenous, from thrauō ‘to break,’ lit. ‘the broken ones,’ fig. ‘the oppressed,’ ‘the down-trodden,’ socially and religiously.

(V. 19) kēruxai eniauton kuriou dekton ‘to proclaim the Lord’s year of favour,’ or ‘the acceptable year of the Lord,’ dependent upon the interpretation of dekton. eniautos.

dektos (also v. 24) (1) ‘acceptable,’ ‘welcome’ or (2) ‘favourable.’ In v. 24 only the former meaning is possible (see below), but here both may apply: (1) ‘the acceptable, or agreeable year of the Lord’ (Revised Standard Version, Nieuwe Vertaling, Zürcher Bibel, Rengstorf) must be understood as agreeable to men; (2) ‘the favourable year of the Lord’ i.e. the year of the Lord’s favour, i.e. the year in which the Lord bestows his favour. The latter is preferable.

Translation:

Here, again the use of honorific requires attention. In order to make the right choice the translator should carefully envisage the situation to which the quotation refers, i.e. that of a messenger of God who tells the people what God has done to him and what he himself is going to do. The position of the messenger is such that he may be taken to address the people in non-honorific language.

The lines (a) and (b) may have to be co-ordinated, e.g. ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; for that purpose he has anointed me. He did so in order that I may preach…,’ or, ‘The Lord has anointed me. Now his Spirit is upon me. This happens in order that I may preach….’

The Spirit of the Lord The relationship between ‘the Lord’ or ‘God’ and ‘his Spirit’ is not the same as that between ‘man’ and ‘his heart/mind/soul.’ To avoid misunderstanding one may have to say, ‘the Spirit from God,’ ‘the Spirit that God gives/sends’; in languages that distinguish between alienable and inalienable possessives, the first may be obligatory. For Lord see on 1.6, sub (c).

He has anointed me. For the verb, here used in a figurative sense. The words refer to Jesus’ experience described in 3.22; hence in Foe the past tense referring to what happened before the day of speaking has to be used, and the aspect which indicates that the speaker describes something that he can see going on.

To preach good news, see on 3.18.

The poor (also in 6.20; 7.22; 14.13, 21; 16.20, 22; 18.22; 19.8; 21.2f), or, ‘those who have very little’; or if such terms are too exclusively economic, ‘the wretched/miserable’ (Balinese), ‘the pitiable.’

To proclaim release to the captives, or avoiding the verbal noun, ‘to announce to the captives that they will be released’ (Sranan Tongo), or, “You shall be (set) free!” In making his choice between possible restructurings the translator should take into account the parallelism with the next phrase, which makes the use of identical constructions preferable. — To proclaim, i.e. to make widely known with authority, has been rendered, ‘to cause-to-be heard-here-and-there’ (Trukese), ‘to spread by saying’ (Tzeltal); cf. also on “to preach” in 3.3. Where more than one term is available one should select the one that is most widely applicable and can also be used metaphorically. Some of the expressions used are ‘the tied-up ones’ (Pohnpeian, Ekari), ‘men that are-imprisoned’ (Javanese), ‘those taken and carried away’ (Marathi), ‘those who have become booty (lit. what-is-taken-as-plunder)’ (Balinese).

And recovering of sight to the blind. For shifts that may be necessary in the syntactic structure, see above. To recover sight, or, ‘to regain (one’s) sight,’ ‘to be able to see again.’ For blind one says, ‘(having) eyes dark/night’ in Ekari, ‘having no eyes’ in Zarma, ‘not seeing’ in honorific Balinese. Some languages have distinctive terms for congenital and non-congenital blindness, the latter to be used here.

Lines (e) and (f) are dependent on “he has sent me” in line (c), which clause has to be repeated in some languages before (e) (as done in Sranan Tongo), and maybe also before (f).

To set at liberty, or, ‘to set free,’ ‘to deliver.’ It may be necessary to add a reference to that which they were delivered from, e.g. ‘to deliver the oppressed from their enemies,’ ‘to help the oppressed against (or, to overcome) what oppresses them.’

Those who are oppressed, or, ‘maltreated,’ ‘defeated.’

(V. 19) The structure of to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, preferably, ‘the favourable year of the Lord’ (see Exegesis), usually will have to be changed, e.g. ‘to proclaim that the favourable year of the Lord has come’ (cf. Sranan Tongo), or, ‘that this is the year of the Lord’s favour,’ “In this year the Lord will show his favour (towards man!)” — For ‘favour’ see references on 1.30.

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.