Exegesis:

kai ēlthen eis Nazara ‘and he came to Nazareth.’ kai marks here the transition from general description to a specific narrative, as brought out in “so he came to Nazareth” (New English Bible, cf. also Phillips, Schonfield, Willibrord, Menge). Nazara other form of the name Nazareth.

hou ēn tethrammenos ‘where he had been brought up.’ The clause refers back to 2.39, 51f.

hou ‘(the place) where, or, whither.’

trephō ‘to feed,’ ‘to nourish,’ hence in the passive ‘to be brought up,’ ‘to grow up.’

kai eisēlthen … en tē hēmera tōn sabbatōn eis tēn sunagōgēn ‘and he went on the day of the sabbath to the synagogue.’ kai implies that what happened between his arrival and his going to the synagogue is irrelevant to the narrative.

sabbaton or sabbata (plural, without difference in meaning) ‘sabbath,’ i.e. the last day of the week which was holy to God and destined for his worship, or ‘week,’ cf. IDB IV, 135-141.

kata to eiōthos autō ‘according to his custom,’ lit. ‘according to what was customary for him,’ going with eisēlthen … eis tēn sunagōgēn.

eiōthos participle of eiōtha ‘to be accustomed,’ used as a substantive ‘that which is customary,’ ‘custom.’ The following dative autō is due to the verbal origin of the word and indicates the person for whom it is customary (cf. also Acts 17.2).

kai anestē anagnōnai ‘and he stood up to read.’

anistēmi (cf. on 1.39) is used here literally.

anagnōnai is final infinitive, ‘in order to read.’ Since Jesus was already widely known as a teacher, he may have been invited to read and expound the lesson in Nazareth too, but the fact that there is no hint at such an invitation seems to suggest that Jesus himself wanted to address the Nazarenes because he had a special message for them.

anaginōskō ‘to read (aloud).’

Translation:

He (at the beginning of a new section, cf. also 4.31; 5.1, 17; 6.12, etc.). As often, the translator has to consider whether this pronominal reference must be specified. In doing so he should take into account that a pronoun referring to the principal character of a story sometimes has a wider range of occurrence than one referring to secondary characters. But even with this reservation, specification often is necessary. The use of an honorific form of the pronoun and/or the verb can often solve the problem, e.g. in Pohnpeian, Balinese, Tae.’

He came to Nazareth. If the receptor language distinguishes between intentional and unintentional acts, the first form can best be chosen here.

Where he had been brought up, or, ‘in which he had grown up (lit. become big from little)’ (Marathi), ‘the town of his-bigness (i.e. his native town)’ (Batak Toba). The indication of the past tense may go with ‘place,’ cf. ‘the former place (where) he was reared’ (Balinese). To bring up is in this context sometimes expressed by ‘to take-care-of’ (Javanese), or, ‘to take-care-of when young’ (Malay).

And, often better a locative qualification, ‘there,’ ‘during his stay there,’ or a temporal one, ‘on the sabbath day.’

As his custom was, or, ‘as he used to do,’ “as he had always done” (The Four Gospels – a New Translation). The phrase may better be transposed, to the end of the sentence, or to its beginning; or one may have to restructure the whole, e.g. ‘he used to go (or, a habitual aspect form of that verb) to … on the sabbath day; so he did again now, or, there.’

On the sabbath day, or, ‘on the next sabbath day,’ ‘when the sabbath (day) came’; on a possible transposition of the phrase see above. For sabbath (also in 4.31; 6.1f, 5, 7, 9; 13.10, 14ff; 14.1, 3, 5; 23.54, 56).

Stood up here implies ‘came to the front,’ as the lectern was close to the front seats.

To read. To make clear that reading aloud is meant Tzeltal renders, ‘to say what God’s Book says.’ In some receptor languages the addition of a direct or an indirect object is obligatory, or desirable, e.g. ‘to read the Scriptures’ (Japanese Kogotai), ‘to read to the people’ (Sranan Tongo). In some Muslim countries it is possible to use the technical term for reciting verses of the Koran (cf. e.g. Sundanese); the Batak Toba term for ‘to read’ is related to the conjunction ‘it,’ probably because originally the principal reading material was to be found in manuals of magic, where each of the prescriptions began with ‘if (such and such happens).’

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.