Exegesis:
hekatontarchou de tinos doulos lit. ‘and of some centurion a slave.’ The position of hekatontarchou at the beginning is emphatic and indicates that he, and not his slave, is the main personality of the subsequent story. This is brought out by e.g. Revised Standard Version by making ‘a centurion’ the subject of the sentence.
hekatontarchēs (also 23.47) ‘centurion,’ a subaltern officer in the Roman army, cf. IDB I, 547ff.
doulos kakōs echōn ēmellen teleutan, hos ēn autō entimos lit. ‘a slave, being ill, was about to die, who was very dear to him.’ hos ēn autō entimos expresses another aspect of the relationship between the centurion and his slave, cf. New English Bible and Revised Standard Version. For kakōs echō cf. on 5.31, and for mellō cf. on 3.7.
teleutaō ‘to end,’ euphemistically, ‘to die.’
entimos (also 14.8) (1) ‘honoured,’ ‘respected,’ or (2) ‘valuable.’ The former is preferable, cf. 14.8 and Phil. 2.29.
Translation:
The verse is usually better divided into two sentences, the first stating the relationship between the master and his servant, the second describing the state that servant was in, cf. Good News Translation.
Centurion. The number of soldiers commanded actually varied between about 50 and 100.
Slave may be rendered or described as ‘have-to-work-er,’ ‘bought-servant,’ ‘credit bondsman/pawner/peon’ (i.e. one who is trying to work off a debt), ‘a man owned by,’ ‘one compelled to work without wages.’ Such renderings, however, sometimes refer to degrading servitude, imply moral reprobation, are said only of persons performing menial tasks (Kituba), or reflect upon the slave’s master as being cruel and merciless (Terena), none of which associations fits the situation in New Testament society. In such cases a less pejorative term is better used, e.g. ‘servant’ (for which see on 12.37), the usual rendering of Gr. doulos in Revised Standard Version.
Who was dear to him, or, ‘who was precious/important to him’ (Trukese, Pohnpeian), ‘whom he loved very much’ (some Indonesian languages).
Who was sick …, or starting a new sentence, ‘That slave/servant was sick….’
Sick and at the point of death, or, ‘so sick that he was at the point of death.’ For sick see on 4.40. At the point of death indicates that the patient had been given up; cf. e.g. ‘lay in agony,’ lit. ‘was-tossing-to-and-fro (as a young buffalo calf)’ (Toraja-Sa’dan); in Marathi the idiomatic expression is ‘leaning on death’; and cf. on “was dying” in 8.42.
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.