Exegesis:

kai anastas ēlthen pros ton patera heautou ‘and he set out and went to his father.’ heautou is equivalent to the simple possessive autou. For anastas cf. on v. 18.

eti de autou makran apechontos ‘while he was still far away,’ scil. from his father’s house. The range of makran (also 7.6) ‘far away’ is determined by the fact that he is already within eyeshot.

eiden auton ho patēr autou ‘his father saw him.’ auton takes up preceding autou. eiden is best understood as ingressive, cf. Bible de Jérusalem.

esplagchnisthē ‘he was filled with pity,’ “his heart went out to him” (Phillips, New English Bible), cf. on 7.13.

dramōn epepesen epi ton trachēlon autou ‘he ran and fell on his neck,’ i.e. ‘he threw his arms around him,’ ‘he embraced him.’ trachēlos also 17.2.

katephilēsen auton ‘he kissed him,’ cf. on 7.38.

Translation:

While he was yet at a distance, or, “while he was still a long way off” (New English Bible). To be at a distance is sometimes rendered by a verbal form derived from ‘far/distant.’

Saw him, sometimes better, ‘saw him coming’ (cf. e.g. Javanese).

Had compassion, see 7.13.

And ran …, or, as a new sentence, ‘he went to meet him’ (Sranan Tongo); or specifying the participants, e.g. ‘his father ran…’ (Bahasa Indonesia KB), ‘he-ran-toward his child’ (Balinese).

Embraced him and kissed him, indicating an affectionate greeting. Descriptive renderings of the first verb may come close to the Greek expression, ‘he put his arms around him, or, around his neck/shoulders/body’; the function, if unknown, usually will become clear from what follows. The verb to kiss often is difficult to render. Some descriptive or idiomatic renderings used are, ‘to smell (the face of)’ (Ekari, Kekchi), an intensive form of ‘to suck’ (West Nyanja, habit and term a novelty amongst the young and more or less westernized people, the traditional term for greeting a friend after a long absence being, ‘to clap in the hands and laugh happily’), ‘to hug’ (Shona 1966), ‘to caress’ (Balinese); Medumba uses ‘suck the cheek,’ a novelty again, the traditional term being ‘to embrace’—which might have been considered here also, as rendering of the two verbs. A generic rendering may be, ‘to greet/welcome affectionately,’ which, again, may have to serve for the two verbs.

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.