Exegesis:
anebē de kai Iōsēph ‘and Joseph also went up’; de is purely transitional and kai refers back to hekastos in the preceding verse: like everyone concerned Joseph ‘also’ went.
anabainō ‘to go up,’ ‘to ascend,’ here of going to a place that is at a higher altitude, but the emphasis is more on going than on ascending. The distance between Nazareth and Bethlehem is 63 miles and the difference in height is about 1000 feet.
apo tēs Galilaias ek poleōs Nazareth ‘from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth.’ There is no difference in meaning between apo and ek because Nazareth is part of Galilee.
eis polin Dauid hētis kaleitai Bēthleem ‘to the town of David which is called Bethlehem’; the reason for calling Bethlehem “the town of David” here is that the Messiah, who will occupy the throne of David (cf. 1.32) will be born in Bethlehem (cf. Mic. 5.1f; Jn. 7.42).
dia to einai auton ex oikou kai patrias Dauid ‘because he was of the house and family of David,’ articular accusative and infinitive governed by a preposition. For ex oikou … Dauid cf. on 1.27.
patria ‘family,’ ‘clan,’ usually the larger unit as compared with oikos, but here the words are best understood as a hendiadys (two semantically related words expressing the same idea and, by virtue of their co-ordination, emphasizing that idea), cf. New English Bible.
Translation:
Went up. Departing from Nazareth Joseph and Mary actually had to descend first, either to the valley of Megiddo or to that of the Jordan, and then, having crossed the former, or followed the latter down stream to Jericho, go up again into the hill, towards Bethlehem. Now, languages differ in specifying whether a journey is to a point higher or lower than the point of departure. Some indicate the difference in elevation always, others do so only when the difference is visible or, though not visible, can easily be envisaged in the mind. In the latter cases a rendering like ‘set out,’ ‘journeyed’ will in this context be more idiomatic. — Where the combination of one verb with two contrasting prepositions is undesirable a second verb may have to be added, e.g. ‘he journeyed/set-out from … and went to…’ (Low Malay), or, ‘he departed from village of N. … in-order to go-up as-far-as…’ (Kituba, cf. also Bible de Jérusalem, Batak Toba).
From Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem. The parallelism between the two locative phrases should preferably be preserved, even if the more specific name has to be put first, e.g. ‘from the city (of) N. in (the region of) G., to the city of D., which is called B., in (the region of) J..’ For Judea see on 1.65.
The city of David. As David is known to have been a king, ‘David’s city’ would normally be taken to mean his residence, or the capital of his kingdom. To avoid this one may have to use ‘birthplace’ instead of ‘city’ (Balinese).
Of, i.e. ‘originating from,’ cf. ‘came-out of’ (Javanese, Kituba), ‘born in’ (Telugu).
House and lineage, often rendered by two synonymous terms, or by one expression (see Exegesis), such as, ‘descent’ (Ekari), ‘clan/tribe’ (Kituba), and, with a further syntactic shift, ‘descended from the former David’ (Tboli). For David and house cf. on 1.27.
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.