Exegesis:
kai erō tē psuchē mou ‘and I will say to my soul,’ i.e. ‘I will say to myself.’ This reflexive use of psuchē is also true of the following vocative psuchē as a way of self-addressing (cf. Ps. 103.1, 2, 22 and other places). But in v. 20 psuchē means ‘life’ as something which is given to man and can be taken away from him. This ambiguous use of psuchē is intentional.
echeis polla agatha keimena eis etē polla ‘you have many goods laid up for many years.’ eis etē polla goes with polla agatha primarily, meaning ‘enough for many years.’ polla agatha here includes panta ton siton kai ta agatha mou of v. 18, i.e. agatha has a wider meaning here than in v. 18.
keimai here ‘to be stored up,’ ‘to be laid by, or, up.’
anapauou ‘take your rest, or, ease,’ ‘relax,’ imperative.
euphrainou ‘be merry,’ ‘enjoy yourself,’ ‘have a good time.’
(V. 20) eipen de autō ho theos ‘but God said to him,’ contrasting with, and interrupting what he said to himself (v. 19).
aphrōn ‘you fool,’ vocative, cf. on 11.40.
taute tē nukti ‘this very night,’ emphatic.
tēn psuchēn sou apaitousin apo sou ‘they demand your life from you,’ present tense expressing the imminence of what will happen. tēn psuchēn sou (cf. on v. 19) is emphatic by position. For apaiteō cf. on 6.30. The agent implied in apaitousin is God.
ha de hētoimasas ‘what you have prepared,’ relative clause serving as subject of the main clause tini estai. For hetoimazō cf. on 1.17.
tini estai ‘for whom shall it be?,’ i.e. ‘to whom shall it go?’
Translation:
My soul (1), Soul (2) … (v. 20) … your soul (3). By using the same term thrice Luke effectively brings out the contrast between what the rich man thinks to be the case, i.e. that he is master of his soul just as he seems to be of his goods, and what God knows it to be, i.e. that he is to lose both. In some languages one has the translational luck that one term is idiomatic in the three occurrences, e.g. ‘life,’ in Zarma; ‘soul/breath (of life)’ in Tzeltal, and in Shona 1966, which in (2) personalizes the term; ‘heart’ in Medumba, and in Sranan Tongo, which in (3) has ‘your heart will cease to beat.’ The contrast is also sufficiently preserved when the term in question occurs only once in v. 19, e.g. ‘say to my soul, “Now you have…” (20)…, “… your soul is required of you…” .’ Often, however, it would be so unidiomatic to use the same term twice or thrice that differentiation is obligatory. Cf. e.g. Thai 1967: (1) ‘inner being (lit. mind-heart)’—(2) ‘inner being (id.)’—(3) ‘life’; Tae’ 1933: ‘soul—you here—breath-of-life’; Batak Toba: ‘soul—soul—breath-of-life’; Ekari: ‘self—you—(living) soul (lit. thought-word)’; Kituba, Leyden: ‘self’—left untranslated—‘life’; New English Bible, Willibrord, or Good News Translation: ‘self—man, or, lucky man—life.’ In such languages one may try to bring out the contrast in another way, e.g. by rendering (3) as ‘the soul you think is yours,’ or by emphasizing the contrast between the two forms of address, saying e.g. ‘you lucky man’ for (2) and ‘you foolish man’ in v. 20. For soul see also 1.46 and references.
Laid up for many years, or, ‘which have been (or, which I have) laid up (for you) for many years,’ ‘enough for years on end’ (Balinese, cf. also ‘many years not-yet exhausted,’ in Tae’ 1933).
Take your ease, or, “take life easy” (Good News Translation), can better be rendered as a proposal or permission, e.g. ‘(now) you should/may take your ease,’ The same holds true of the subsequent imperatives.
Eat, drink, cf. “eat and drink” in 5.30; the reference is to feasting, as shown by the subsequent be merry, or “enjoy yourself” (New English Bible), “have a good time” (Phillips).
(V. 20) Fool, or ‘you fool(ish man)’; and see 11.40.
Assuming these words to be spoken by day, this night refers to the coming night, which implies a reference to the next day in languages where the day is taken to begin at sunset.
Your soul is required of you. A literal rendering of the Greek by ‘they require,’ ‘somebody requires’ may suggest God as agent (e.g. in Zarma, Ekari), but will more often be taken as referring to unmentioned human beings; hence shifts to the passive (in some European versions and in Lomwe, Shona, Kele, Thai 1967, Tzeltal), or to ‘I require’ (cf. Kituba, Trukese), or to renderings such as, “you will have to give up your life” (Good News Translation), ‘your-spirit will drift-away from you’ (Pohnpeian). To require of, or, ‘to ask (back) from,’ ‘to call/take from,’ ‘to reclaim from (as one does a loan)’ (The Four Gospels – a New Translation, Bahasa Indonesia KB, Batak Toba), and cf. ‘you will have these words addressed to you, “Give me here your soul” ’ (Shona 1966).
The things you have prepared is emphatic by position. If emphasis has to be expressed otherwise, one may say something like, ‘(all) those things you have been preparing up till now.’ To prepare, or, ‘to set/make ready,’ or, in this context, ‘to store up’ (Medumba), ‘to collect’ (Sranan Tongo), since the reference is to the goods rather than to the barns.
Whose will they be, or, ‘who will acquire/possess them.’ This clause may better come first, cf. e.g. ‘to whom will you leave the things you have collected’ (Sranan Tongo), ‘who will call-his-own all that you prepared’ (Toraja-Sa’dan).
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.