Exegesis:
kai ouk ēn autois teknon ‘and they had no child’ denoting the main aspect of their life which is relevant to what follows. To render kai as ‘but’ (cf. Revised Standard Version) is to comment implicitly on the childlessness of Zechariah and Elizabeth and hence not advisable.
kathoti ēn hē Elisabet steira ‘because Elizabeth was barren.’
kathoti (also 19.9) ‘because of the fact that.’
steira ‘barren.’ In ancient Israel to have no children was a disgrace (cf. 1.25; 1 Samuel 1.2–2.10), or considered as divine punishment (cf. Lev. 20.20f; Jer. 22.30), but neither thought is implied here (cf. Gen. 18.11).
kai amphoteroi probebēkotes en tais hēmerais autōn ēsan ‘and both were advanced in their days,’ not dependent upon kathoti but co-ordinate with kai ouk ēn autois teknon and adding to that phrase and the preceding one a third trait which completes the picture of Zechariah and Elizabeth: righteous, without child and beyond the hope of ever having one.
probainō ‘to advance,’ in Luke only in the perfect and in a figurative sense, ‘advanced in years,’ with hēmerai ‘days,’ ‘life,’ cf. on v. 5.
Translation:
They had no child, or, ‘they were childless, or, without offspring.’ — Child has two basic components of meaning, (1) descent, in the Greek indicated by teknon ‘child,’ ‘offspring’ (used here and in 1.17; 3.8; 11.13; 14.26; 18.29; 20.28f, 31; 23.28), or sperma ‘seed,’ ‘offspring’ (20.28); and (2) age, in the Greek indicated by paidion (1.59, 66, 76, 80; 2.17, 27, 40; 7.32; 9.47f; 11.7; 18.16f), or pais (8.1, 54). Term (1) may be used for descendants in the first degree, or in further degrees (3.8); it can be expanded to cover other intimate human relationships, e.g. between teacher and pupil (similarly in East and Toraja-Sa’dan, where ‘child of teacher’ means ‘disciple,’ ‘pupil’), and even non-human interrelations, cf. ‘children of a city’ (13.34; 19.44), ‘children of wisdom’ (7.35). The word also has a component of relative age, since a person is older than his offspring. (In Revised Standard Version “child” occurs moreover in “to be with child”, rendering Gr. ousē egkuō in 2.5, which see, and en gastri echousais in 21.23.) Term (2) usually refers to young persons; the age can vary from newly born to about 12 years, but age grades may also be specified, cf. “boy” in 2.43 and 9.42. In certain contexts this term may imply descent, since ‘a person’s young-ones’ may refer to his offspring. Some receptor languages follow more or less the English pattern, e.g. French, Ekari, Sranan Tongo, Bahasa Indonesia (where the use for non-human interrelations is wider, not only ‘children of a city’ for its inhabitants, ‘children of a boat’ for crew, etc., but also ‘child of a gun’ for bullet, ‘child of a wheel’ for spoke, etc.). Other languages have distinctive terms for ‘offspring’ (often obligatorily or preferably in the possessed form) and for ‘young person,’ e.g. Balinese, East and Toraja-Sa’dan. Though the basic division may correspond with the Greek, there usually are differences in detail. Thus, a language may have more distinctive terms for age grades than the Greek, or less (see on 2.17). Or Gr. paidion, when used in close connexion with a young person’s parents, may better be rendered by the term for ‘offspring’ (often with a possessive), e.g. in 1.80, or in 1.76 and 11.7 (Toraja-Sa’dan; similarly Balinese, which in 1.76 combines the two terms, ‘little-one my child’). The same may be true of Gr. pais, when used as a friendly form of address by a person who is not the parent, cf. e.g. ‘my-child/offspring’ (Tae’ 1933) in 8.54. Reversely Balinese can in certain contexts use ‘the little-one’ in the sense of ‘my (or, your) child/offspring.’
Was barren, or, ‘one-who-did-not-bear’ (Apache), ‘could not give birth’ (South Bolivian Quechua, similarly Kituba, where the existing specific term ‘sterile person’ is primarily used of men). Sranan Tongo distinguishes between a term for barrenness in general, ‘unable to get a child’ (used here) and one for barrenness because of old age, ‘closed womb/belly’ (used in v. 36).
Advanced in years, or, ‘old in months’ (Western Highland Purepecha), ‘high in age’ (Navajo, in v. 18), ‘past (the time of) having-children’ (Toraja-Sa’dan). In some languages (e.g. Thai, Tae,’ Tagalog) the closest natural equivalent is simply, ‘old/aged’; this fits the context in this verse, but less so in v. 18. Special problems are encountered in Shipibo-Conibo, which counts age by age-grades: baby–child–adolescent–mature–old, with sex-distinction from adolescent on (hence two separate statements must be made), and prefers to use kinship terms instead of pronouns (hence ‘her husband’ must replace ‘he’); this results in ‘that woman was a-little-old-lady, and her husband was a-little-old-man.’
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.