Exegesis:

tautēn de thugatera Abraam ousan ‘this (woman), a daughter of Abraham,’ emphatically placed at the beginning of the clause. tautēn is demonstrative pronoun used as a substantive. thugatēr Abraam denotes a female descendant of Abraham, i.e. a member of God’s people (cf. on 1.5).

hēn edēsen ho Satanas idou deka kai oktō etē ‘whom Satan has kept bound, mind you, for eighteen years.’ For Satanas cf. on 10.18. idou serves to focus the attention on the eighteen years.

deō (also 19.30) ‘to bind,’ here in the figurative meaning of being bound by sickness. The aorist tense has the force of a pluperfect and refers to a situation which only now has come to an end.

ouk edei luthēnai apo tou desmou toutou lit. ‘was it not necessary that (this woman) should be released from this bond.’ edei denotes obligation. luthēnai is equivalent to apolelusai in v. 12.

desmos (cf. on 8.29) ‘bond,’ here in the same figurative sense as deō.

Translation:

The sentence is often better divided in two sentences, one stating the case, e.g. “and here is this woman, …, who has been kept prisoner by Satan for … years” (New English Bible), ‘but this woman, …, well, already … years Satan has kept her fettered’ (cf. Balinese), and the other containing the rendering of the rhetorical question, e.g. ‘ought she not be freed…?,’ “surely she should be released…” (Phillips).

Ought not this woman … be loosed, or, ‘was it not right that this woman … be loosed’; or as a statement and shifting to an active construction, ‘surely it is my duty to (or, certainly I should) loose this woman….’

For daughter of Abraham cf. on 1.5, for Satan 10.18.

Bound … loosed from this bond. Because of v. 15 it is preferable to preserve the metaphor, if necessary shifting to a simile, or adding a reference to its meaning, cf. e.g. ‘bound with this sickness … loosed from this sickness’ (Dios Habla Hoy). Where this is impossible one must shift to a non-metaphorical rendering, e.g. ‘made ill … cured from this illness.’ Tzeltal combines two solutions, cf. ‘bound as it were by Satan … be helped.’

For eighteen years. The emphasis (expressed by the Gr. idou) has also been brought out by such renderings as, “for eighteen long years” (New English Bible), ‘a time up-to eighteen years’ (Javanese).

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.