Exegesis:

ptōchos de tis onomati Lazaros ‘a beggar named Lazarus.’ For ptōchos cf. on 4.18. The religious connotation is also present here. No special meaning is to be attached to the name Lazarus even though this is the only time that a personal name occurs in a parable.

ebeblēto pros ton pulōna autou lit. ‘had been laid at his gate.’ The pluperfect tense of ebeblēto denotes the result of laying down, rather that the act, “(had been prostrated and) lay”.

pulōn ‘gate,’ ‘entrance,’ of the gate of a large house or palace.

heilkōmenos ‘covered with sores,’ past participle of helkoō ‘to cause sores.’

(V. 21) epithumōn chortasthēnai apo tōn piptontōn apo tēs trapezēs tou plousiou ‘longing to satisfy himself with that which fell from the rich man’s table.’ epithumōn is syntactically co-ordinate with heilkōmenos. ta piptonta lit. ‘that which falls’ refers to that which was thrown away after the meals, or to that which fell from the table during the meals, preferably the former.

alla kai hoi kunes erchomenoi epeleichon ta helkē autou ‘but (not only) that,’ ‘even the dogs used to come and lick his sores,’ adding another touch of sorrow to the picture of the poor man’s situation.

epileichō ‘to lick.’ The imperfect tense points to a habitual situation.

helkos ‘sore,’ ‘abscess.’

Translation:

At his gate lay a poor man…, who…, introducing a second character, which may require something like ‘there was (also) a poor man…, lying at his (or, the rich man’s) gate/door. He….’ At his gate, or, ‘at the entrance of his house,’ ‘in the front of his house (lit. at his opening)’ (West Nyanja). In other cultural situations one may have to say e.g. ‘at the lower-end of the rich man’s stairs,’ or, ‘at the place where-one-steps-inside (i.e. the upper end of the stairs)-of-him’ (East or Toraja-Sa’dan, where the houses are built on poles), ‘at the gate of the fence around his house’ (Thai 1967, similarly Shona 1966), ‘at the entrance of the other’s compound’ (Zarma).

Full of sores. For full of see 5.12; for sores, or, ‘ulcers.’

(V. 21) Desired to be fed with, or, ‘desired to be given (to eat),’ ‘longed to receive (for food),’ ‘wished to satisfy his hunger with.’

What fell from the rich man’s table, i.e. ‘scraps/bits (thrown away) from the … table/meal,’ ‘what the servants threw away from the … meal,’ ‘the leftovers from the rich man’s food’ (Batak Toba).

Moreover the dogs came …, the climax in this description of Lazarus’ misery, as brought out in ‘he was even forced to put up with the dogs who used to come…’ (cf. The Four Gospels – a New Translation).

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.