Exegesis:
exēlthen ho speirōn tou speirai ton sporon autou ‘a sower went out to sow his seed.’ The clause has a ring of solemnity because of the threefold repetition of a word from the same root. In ho speirōn the force of the article is generic; hence ‘a sower’ in many translations (cf. Revised Standard Version). tou speirai is final articular infinitive, ‘in order to sow.’
sporos (also v. 11) ‘seed.’
en tō speirein auton lit. ‘during his sowing,’ i.e. ‘as he sowed.’ auton refers to ho speirōn.
ho men epesen ‘some (seed) fell.’ ho is neuter though it refers to the masculine sporos. ho men is continued, not by ho de, but by kai heteron in vv. 6, 7, 8, also in the neuter.
para tēn hodon ‘by the side of the road,’ or ‘on the road,’ preferably the latter, as the next verb shows.
katepatēthē ‘was trodden on,’ ‘was trampled,’ cf. on 12.1.
ta peteina tou ouranou katephagen auto ‘the birds of the air ate it up.’ The phrase ta peteina tou ouranou (also 9.58; 13.19; and cf. Gen. 1.26; Ps. 8.9) has become a stereotype in which the genitive tou ouranou has lost its specific meaning; hence the rendering ‘birds.’ auto in the neuter refers to ho men at the beginning of v. 5.
Translation:
A sower went out to sow his seed is redundant in specific references to the process; hence some of the terms may have to be rendered more generically, or even omitted, which results e.g. in, ‘a man (or, farmer/husbandman) went out to sow his seed, or, to scatter-sow.’ Went out, i.e. from his house or settlement towards his fields; the verb indicates ingressive aspect. His seed. Some languages distinguish between ‘seed’ (as found on the plant) and ‘sowing-seed,’ e.g. Tae’ (lit. ‘pip/grain’ and ‘what-has-been-threshed-out’); in others the normal object of ‘to sow’ is the name of the plant sown, i.e. here ‘wheat/grain’ (for the rendering of which cf. on 3.17). The possessive may have to be described, e.g. ‘the seed he used,’ ‘the seed of his fields,’ but more often the form, if rendered at all, is better left unpossessed.
Some, or, ‘some seed,’ ‘a part (of the seed)’; in some Indonesian languages the idiom is, ‘there-was seed that’ (Bahasa Indonesia RC), ‘there-was one part (lit. one-half, which can be used also when the item is divided into more than two parts)’ (Malay). The fourfold ‘some’ in vv. 5-8 may require differentiation, e.g. ‘there-was one-part that … (twice), there-was also one-part that…, there-was again one-part that…’ (Bahasa Indonesia).
Along the path, preferably, ‘on the path,’ or, ‘toward the path’ (Sundanese, Batak Toba). For path cf. on 3.4.
And was trodden under foot, or with an indefinite active form, ‘and/there people (or, the passers-by) trod on it.’
The birds of the air, or simply, ‘the birds’ (see Exegesis), specifically the undomesticated birds (cf. 9.58), which is sometimes expressed ‘wild birds,’ ‘field birds.’
Devoured, preferably, ‘pecked up’ (Javanese).
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.