Exegesis:
elegen de pros pantas ‘then he said to all.’ pantas may refer (1) to all the disciples, i.e. those present in vv. 18-22 and all other disciples (cf. on 6.13 and Mt. 16.24); or (2) to all people, i.e. the disciples and the crowd (cf. Mk. 8.34). The latter is slightly more probable.
To that treatment one point must be added: to aratō ton stauron autou ‘he must take up his cross’ Luke adds kath’ hēmeran ‘daily,’ which makes the clause refer to daily acts of self-surrendering and not to actual death on a cross.
Translation:
All, or, ‘the many,’ ‘the crowd’ (Bahasa Indonesia RC), ‘all the people there’ (Balinese).
Would, here and in v. 24, preferably ‘wants.’
Come after me, i.e. “be a follower of mine” (New English Bible), or an equivalent receptor language idiom, e.g. “walk in my footsteps” (The Four Gospels – a New Translation), ‘tie my back’ (Guhu-Samane); cf. also on “followed” in 5.11.
Deny himself. The term for denying a fact usually cannot be employed in this context.
Take up his cross, as a metaphor for ‘suffering like Jesus did,’ has its background and finds its explanation in the Gospel itself. This relationship should be preserved in translation, even if the noun sounds unfamiliar in the receptor language and requires explanation. Take up, or, ‘carry (on shoulder)’ (Trukese); the aspect is ingressive, cf. ‘lift up and carry’ (Shona 1966). Cross, as instrument for execution, is unknown in several cultures. Therefore, the translator may have to adapt a term, or form a descriptive phrase. In some languages such a term or phrase only refers to the form, e.g. in Shona, Batak Toba, East Nyanja and Yao (both using a term for ‘ridge-pole of a hut-frame,’ similarly in Mongolian). Elsewhere it refers to the function, e.g. a coined term, made up of two Sanskrit words, meaning ‘killing-pole’ (Marathi revision), ‘wood to-stretch-out-with’ (Toraja-Sa’dan), nailing pole (Zarma). A combination of the two seems to be used in Balinese, which employs a word for the crossbeams in a house, derived from a verb that can refer both to a beam that stretches from side to side under a roof, and to a person stretched out for torture. Very often a borrowing is employed, e.g. from ‘cross’ etc. (cf. krus, krusha, kurusiya, kurisu in some Indic languages), or from its equivalent in Arabic, as found in some other Indic and Indonesian languages (salib), and e.g. in Swahili (msalaba), etc. An available term, however, may have, or have acquired, an undesirable connotation. Thus the Tzeltal word originally refers to a fetish; to make possible its reinterpretation it is necessary to make explicit its connexion with death; hence here, ‘let him obey dying on the cross, as it were.’
Follow me, i.e. ‘accompany me,’ ‘go the same way as I (go)’; cf. on 7.9.
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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