This verse and the following explain what Peter did that led to Paul’s public denunciation of him. When Peter first arrived, he had no difficulty joining in the mixed fellowship, but afterwards, at the instigation of, or for fear of, some men, he refused to have anything to do with the Gentiles.
One of the principal difficulties involved in the translation of this verse results from the temporal relations as reflected in the various tense forms and temporal conjunctions, for example, before, had been sent, arrived, had been eating, after, drew back, and would not eat. A special complication occurs in the first sentence of this verse in which the conjunction before goes with the verb arrived, while there is an embedded relative clause of prior time, who had been sent by James. It may, therefore, be necessary to restructure the order and arrangement of elements within this verse, for example, “James had sent some men to Antioch, but before they arrived there Peter had been making it a practice to eat with the Gentile believers. But after these men arrived there, he refused to continue eating with them. He did this because he was afraid of those who said that the Gentiles should be circumcised.”
Had been eating is in the imperfect tense in the Greek, indicating that Peter did this not only once, but regularly. The phrase itself may refer either to regular meals, or to the fellowship meals, that is, the meals which were part of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. In either case, the Jews would have some problems in a mixed group, since the Jewish law forbade Jews to eat with Gentiles because of the danger of eating food declared by the Law to be unclean, that is, forbidden because it made one impure before God. In Antioch, Peter went against this particular regulation and regularly joined the Gentile Christians in their meals. Some languages have a so-called repetitive form of verbs, and this would fit in well in this context, that is to say, “he had been repeatedly eating with believers who were not Jews.”
Gentile brothers (literally “Gentiles”) are Gentile members of the congregation. Good News Translation makes explicit the fact that Peter did not eat with all the Gentiles, as a literal translation might suggest, but only with Gentile Christians.
The occasion for Peter’s withdrawal is the arrival of some men who had been sent by James (literally “some men from James”). The Greek of this phrase is ambiguous. What is clear is that these men were connected in some way with James, but it is not clear whether they were sent by James (as understood by Good News Translation, also Moffatt “emissaries of James”) or were simply members of the Jerusalem church but whose visit to Antioch was not ordered by James (Jerusalem Bible “certain friends of James arrived”; Phillips “the arrival of some of James’ companions”).
He drew back and would not eat with the Gentiles is literally “he was drawing back and separating himself.” Because of the imperfect tense of the two verbs in the Greek text, some commentaries understand this to represent a process: Peter did not take this step all at once, but gradually (Knox “he began to draw back,” also Moffatt). Furthermore, some commentaries understand “was separating himself” in the general sense of Peter’s withdrawal from associating with the Gentiles (Jerusalem Bible “kept away from them altogether”; New English Bible “he drew back and began to hold aloof”). Some, however, interpret this separation in a more specific sense, that is, referring back to the eating of meals just mentioned (so Good News Translation, compare Phillips “he withdrew and ate separately from the Gentiles”). In some languages the equivalent of drew back would be expressed negatively, for example, “he did not continue to associate with” or “he refused to continue association with.” In certain languages the relation is expressed somewhat idiomatically, for example, “he put a distance between himself and the Gentile believers.”
Those who were in favor of circumcising them translates what is literally “those of (the) circumcision.” While this could be interpreted as meaning simply “those who were circumcised” (New American Bible), that is, the Jews (Phillips “out of sheer fear of what the Jews might think”), it could refer to a party within the Christian community at Antioch which favored the circumcision of Gentile Christians but more likely to those Jewish Christians who had been sent by James (Jerusalem Bible “for fear of the group that insisted on circumcision”; New English Bible “he was afraid of the advocates of circumcision”). In some instances one may also translate “those who said, The Gentile believers must be circumcised,” or “… Someone must circumcise the Gentile believers.”
Quoted with permission from Arichea, Daniel C. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1976. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .