Exegesis:
eulogÄtos āpraised,ā with eiÄ ābeā (optative), or estin āisā understood, preferably the latter. As distinct from eulogÄmenos (see on v. 42), eulogÄtos in the New Testament always refers to God or to Jesus Christ.
kurios ho theos tou IsraÄl āthe Lord, the God of Israelā; because of the Old Testament background of the phrase it is best to understand kurios as representing the name Yahweh and not as a title.
hoti epeskepsato āfor he has visited (his people)ā with ton laon understood.
episkeptomai in Luke always of God’s visiting of his people in order to bestow some grace upon them, here the redemption referred to in the subsequent clause. Thus the verb here prepares, as it were, the way for that clause.
kai epoiÄsen lutrÅsin tÅ laÅ autou āand he has brought about redemption for his people.ā In this Hebraistic phrase the event is indicated by the verbal noun lutrÅsis, epoiÄsen having only an auxiliary function; hence the rendering āredeemedā (cf. Revised Standard Version).
lutrÅsis (also 2.38) āredemption.ā
Translation:
Blessed, or, āworthy of praiseā (Tagalog); or, where active forms must be used, āI wish-to praiseā (Kituba), āthe Lord … should receive big nameā (Sranan Tongo).
The Lord God of Israel. For āthe Lord, (the) Godā followed by a possessive, see above on v. 16.
Has visited. The verb āto visit,ā āto come to seeā sometimes has the required connotation of āto care for,ā e.g. in Trukese, Zarma. Elsewhere other verbs or phrases must be used to indicate that connotation, e.g. āto look-(down-)uponā (Tae,ā Kituba), āto turn-to-look-atā (Tboli), āto descend-uponā (Balinese in 7.16, a term commonly used when the gods visit their worshippers e.g. at a temple festival), āto forget notā (Cuyono in 7.16), and quite explicitly, ācome to help/saveā (Dios Habla Hoy, Good News Translation). In the present verse, however, some versions use a more generic verb because of the specification given by the next verb, e.g. āhe has come to redeem his peopleā (cf. Navajo, Apache).
In Greek or English his people can have two meanings, (1) āthe people he rulesā (as intended here), and (2) āthe people he is a member of,ā but in other languages the use of the possessive pronoun may suggest either (1) or (2); if (2) then another rendering must be chosen. Therefore Toraja-Saādan says āthe men He has chosenā; some other Indonesian languages use a noun that characterizes a people as the followers of a prophet or subjects of a god, and normally takes the possessive pronoun as a reference to that prophet or god. For people cf. above on v. 17; for making explicit that the reference is to the people to which the speaker belongs, cf. on āhis servant Israelā in v. 54.
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.
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