Exegesis:
heōs esō eis tēn aulēn literally ‘until within into the courtyard.’
aulē (14.66; 15.14) ‘inner court,’ ‘courtyard’: the enclosed area, open to the sky, and surrounded on the sides by buildings or porches. King James Version ‘palace’ is misleading (cf. Gould).
ēn sugkathēmenos (only here in Mark; cf. kathēmai 2.6) ‘he was sitting with.’
tōn hupēretōn (14.65) ‘the servants,’ ‘the helpers’: in all probability these were members of the Temple guard; therefore, as Revised Standard Version has it, ‘the guards.’
thermainomenos (14.67) ‘warming himself’: the auxiliary ēn ‘he was’ goes with this participle as well as with the previous one, ‘he was sitting … and warming himself.’
pros to phōs literally ‘at the light’: here, however, the phrase means ‘at the (light of the) fire’ (cf. Moulton & Milligan for this use of phōs ‘light’). It has been suggested that ‘light’ is here a mistranslation of the unpointed Hebrew word ʾwr which could be pointed ʾor ‘light’ or ʾur ‘fire.’
For apo makrothen ‘from afar’ cf. 5.6; akoloutheō ‘follow’ cf. 1.18.
Translation:
Followed him must not be rendered so as to indicate Peter’s favorable intent, but his evident distance from Jesus. In general one cannot use the same verb as may be employed, for example, in the words of Jesus follow me (1.17). At this point Peter was following along after the crowd, not in accompaniment with Jesus.
Right into … may be rendered as ‘he went right on into,’ for ‘at a distance’ and ‘right into’ may be difficult to combine in a single clause in a receptor language.
In some languages one cannot speak of ‘courtyard of the high priest,’ but only of ‘courtyard of the buildings of the high priest,’ since the area surrounded by buildings is essentially relatable only to the buildings and they, in turn, to the high priest.
In most languages there is no problem involved in the description of Peter’s being with the guards and warming himself, for it is implied that the guards were also warming themselves. In some languages, however, the contrast of pronominal construction is so great that Peter’s action would be interpreted as being in contrast with the others. Hence, in Isthmus Zapotec one must say ‘he with them was warming’ thus including Peter.
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 .