Exegesis:
hōs de ēggisen tē pulē tēs poleōs ‘and as he approached the gate of the town.’ pulē.
eggizō with following dative ‘to approach,’ ‘to come near.’
kai idou exekomizeto tethnēkōs ‘(and) behold a dead man was being carried out.’ For kai idou cf. on 1.20.
ekkomizō ‘to carry out,’ often used as here for the taking of a corpse to a burial-place outside.
tethnēka (also 8.49) lit. ‘to have died,’ hence ‘to be dead.’ Here the participle tethnēkōs is used as an indefinite substantive.
monogenēs huios tē mētri autou ‘an only son of (lit. for) his mother,’ apposition to tethnēkōs.
monogenēs, adjective, ‘only,’ in Luke always of an only child.
kai ochlos tēs poleōs hikanos ēn sun autē ‘and a large crowd of the townspeople (lit. of the town) was with her.’ Hikanos means ‘considerable’ with reference to quantity.
Translation:
As he drew near…, behold, a man …, or, ‘just as (or, at the moment) he drew near, a man…’; cf. also on 1.20. To draw near with local object may be rendered, ‘to come close to,’ ‘to come in the neighbourhood of,’ ‘to have nearly reached’ (Javanese in 15.25).
Gate of the city, or, ‘gate in the wall of the city’ (Trukese). Gate can sometimes be rendered by the term for the entrance in an earthen wall, wooden palisade, or hedge of a settlement, which can be barricaded at night, e.g. in Marathi, East and Toraja-Sa’dan. Elsewhere a more generic word is used, e.g. ‘entrance’ (Kekchi), or, ‘exit’ (Balinese).
A man who had died was being carried out, or, ‘people were/came carrying out a dead one’ (cf. Trukese); or, introducing a technical term, “a funeral procession was coming out” (Good News Translation). For a man who had died, or, ‘a dead man/one,’ ‘a corpse.’ In the receptor language ‘a dead man’ may be thought of as a person or as an object, which will influence the selection of terms (cf. on 16.22), or of categories (e.g. personal: non-personal, animate: inanimate). For to die (also in 16.22; 20.28f, 31f, 36). — To carry out. Renderings may have to be specific as to the way of carrying (cf. on “bringing” in 5.18), or the occasion, i.e. the burial.
The only son of his mother, and she was a widow. Often such a long apposition is better rendered as a new sentence, ‘he/the dead man was the only son….’ More radical changes may be needed, e.g. ‘an only son, his mother a widow’ (Javanese), “the only son of a woman who was a widow” (Good News Translation), ‘the son of a widow, her only child’ (Tzeltal), ‘the child of a woman whose husband had died; this woman had no other sons’ (Kituba), ‘the mother of the dead man was a widow, having (as) son only him’ (Balinese), ‘he was the only one his mother had, and the mother was a widow’ (Zarma); Tboli has a euphemistic expression, ‘he was the only child his father left his mother, a boy child.’ For widow see above on 2.37.
A large crowd from the city was with her, or, ‘very many people … accompanied/followed her, or, thronged-after her’ (Batak Toba); ‘a large crowd also from-with the woman in the-city (i.e. accompanied the woman as they came from within the city)’ (Pohnpeian).
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.