Exegesis:
embas de eis hen tōn ploiōn, ho ēn Simōnos ‘after stepping in one of the boats which was Simon’s’; the genitive is possessive.
embainō ‘to go in,’ ‘to step in,’ in Luke always of going into a boat.
apo tēs gēs epanagagein oligon ‘to put out a little from the shore,’ dependent upon ērōtēsen auton ‘he asked him.’ gē ‘land’ as opposed to sea.
epanagō ‘to put out to sea.’
kathisas de ‘and after sitting down,’ going with edidasken ‘he taught.’ As 4.20 shows the usual way of teaching was sitting.
ek tou ploiou edidasken ‘he taught from the boat.’ The imperfect tense is continuative, cf. “he went on teaching” (New English Bible).
Translation:
Shifting to co-ordination one may say, ‘one of them was S.’s boat (or, one of the boats belonged to S.). He got into it and asked….’
To get into a boat, or synthetically, ‘to embark,’ is variously expressed, e.g. ‘to mount a boat’ (Tae,’ same verb as used with horses), ‘to ascend a boat’ (Tboli, same verb used when one comes up into a house on stilts).
Asked him to put out …, or more analytically, ‘said to them, “Will you put out…, or, I want you to put out…” ’; elsewhere more synthetically, ‘he-let-her-be-pushed-off’ (Toraja-Sa’dan). In a language such as Balinese Jesus does not ask but ‘utters-a-wish.’
To put out … from the land. The aspect is momentaneous. Idiomatic equivalents may be viewing the event from another angle, ‘to go-to-the-middle’ (i.e. of the lake) (Balinese), or built on the instrument used, ‘to pole out (from the shore)’ (Ekari, Tae’).
He sat down and taught … from the boat, or, if the first verb requires a locative qualification, ‘he sat down in the boat and taught … from there’ (Santali). Sat down, i.e. on a beam or bench in the boat, or perhaps in its bow or stern.
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.