Exegesis:

kathōs gegraptai en nomō kuriou ‘as it is written in the law of the Lord,’ cf. on v. 22.

hoti ‘that,’ introduces a quotation.

pan arsen dianoigon mētran ‘every male that opens the womb.’

arsēn ‘male’; par arsen ‘every male’ (in the neuter) is a rendering of the Hebrew kol zakar (in the masculine). The neuter here suggests the idea of collectivity; although it may include both men and animals (as shown in Ex. 13.2, 12, 15), in this context only the first category is important.

dianoigō ‘to open.’

mētra ‘the womb.’ The expression dianoigon mētran ‘opening the womb’ denotes the first child to which a mother gives birth; it is a Hebraism, cf. Ex. 13.2, not on record in Greek.

hagion tō kuriō klēthēsetai ‘shall be called holy to the Lord.’ The future tense has the force of an imperative. For klēthēsetai ‘shall be called’ cf. on 1.32, hagion tō kuriō ‘holy to the Lord’ means ‘his property, dedicated to his service.’

Translation:

Where it is unacceptable to use a long sentence in parenthesis, it is better to give v. 23 the status of an independent sentence, e.g. ‘For it is written…’ (Sranan Tongo), “This was to fulfil a requirement of the Law” (Phillips), expressing by another device the connection between v. 22 and v. 24 (which see).

As it is written in is the standing phrase for introducing quotations from Holy Scripture. Equivalent formulae are found in several languages, e.g. ‘as it says in,’ ‘as in Scripture, or, the book, or (in this passage), the Law has it,’ ‘thus is the sound of,’ ‘as what stands in’ (Balinese), ‘thus word of tradition, or, writ in’ (a more archaic Balinese expression). Where such a formula is available it should be used, even if formally different from the Greek; where not, a literal rendering of the Greek will do, unless the receptor language cannot use a passive construction. Then one may have to shift to something like ‘as people/we read in,’ or, if the author is mentioned in, or can be inferred from, the context, ‘as NN has written.’

The law of the Lord and the law of Moses (v. 22). The preposition “of” expresses different relationships, i.e. ‘given by,’ ‘originating from’ and ‘written down by’ respectively; therefore the two phrases may have to be rendered differently, e.g. ‘the commandment of the Lord’ and ‘the commandment God formerly wrote through Moses’ (Tboli), ‘the law, commandment of the Lord’ and ‘the law of M.’ (Balinese). Bahasa Indonesia, though using the same construction in both cases, has different terms, ‘Law’ and Torat (borrowed, via Arabic, from Hebrew torah, suggesting the written form of the law, and therefore naturally going with a reference to the person who wrote it down).

Male that opens the womb. A literal rendering of this Hebraism may be dangerous: in one receptor language it would indicate sexual intercourse. The rendering often is basically the same as that of “first-born son” in v. 7 (cf. Enxet, Tagalog, Kannada, Kituba, Javanese). Vai has, ‘male child first born in the family’; Uab Meto uses here, ‘male his-mother gives-birth-to making-an-opening-for-herself’ but could also have chosen the comparable idiom found in v. 7.

Called holy to. Translators have used renderings such as, ‘counted dedicated to’ (Tagalog), ‘called the property of’ (Batak Toba), ‘which-is-reserved-to … its name’ (Balinese), ‘called set-apart for’ (Toraja-Sa’dan) or, in active voice, ‘they always set apart for’ (Tboli, omitting the verb ‘called,’ probably in order to avoid the connotation ‘only in name but not actually’). — For holy see references on 1.15.

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.