Text:

After sunerchontai ‘they come together,’ Textus Receptus, Soden, Vogels, Souter, and Kilpatrick add autō ‘to him,’ which is omitted by the majority of modern editions of the Greek text.

Exegesis:

sunerchontai (cf. 3.20) ‘they come together,’ ‘they assemble,’ ‘they gather’: the verb here expresses the act of coming together, rather than describes the gathering as having taken place. Therefore, ‘they came together’ or ‘they assembled themselves’ is a better translation than Revised Standard Version ‘were assembled’ (which is the meaning of sunēchthēsan in the parallel passage Mt. 26.57).

The other words in this verse have already been dealt with: for apagō ‘lead off’ cf. v. 44; for ho archiereus ‘the high priest’ cf. v. 47; for hoi archiereis kai hoi presbuteroi kai hoi grammateis ‘the chief priests and the elders and the scribes’ cf. 8.31.

Translation:

For high priest and chief priests see verse 47; for elders see 8.31, and for scribes see 1.22.

Were assembled may be rendered as ‘came together into an assembly,’ ‘got together in a council,’ or ‘came together to decide on the matter.’

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of Mark. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1961. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .