Exegesis:
epistrapheis (cf. 4.12) ‘turning,’ ‘turning round’ as in 5.30.
hupage opisō mou ‘you get behind me!’ is the meaning commonly assigned to the phrase here, as a rebuke, contrary to the usual meaning of opiso (cf. 1.7) to denote the honored place of the disciple, the follower, of Jesus. Morton Smith conjectures the Greek should have been hupage ex opisō mou meaning ‘cease to be my disciple!’ Most commentators, however, take the phrase here to mean ‘withdraw!’ ‘retire!’ ‘go away!’ (cf. Arndt & Gingrich ‘get out of my sight!’). C. H. Dodd translates ‘Go backward,’ i.e. withdraw, and Black renders ‘away from me that I no longer see thee.’
satana (cf. 1.13) ‘Satan’ (in the vocative case).
hoti ou phroneis ta tou theou alla ta tōn anthrōpōn ‘because you are not thinking the things (thoughts) of God but the things (thoughts) of men.’ The Revised Standard Version paraphrase is not very satisfactory.
phroneō (only here in Mark) ‘think,’ ‘set one’s mind on,’ ‘be intent on’: the verb refers not simply to intellectual activity but also to direction and purpose of heart (cf. Souter: “moral interest, thought, and study, and not a mere unreflecting opinion”).
Translation:
Seeing his disciples must be in some instances ‘seeing his other disciples,’ for Peter was obviously not in this group, but at that moment at the back of Jesus. In Sayula Popoluca the equivalent is ‘looking at the disciples,’ in the sense of facing them.
If possible it would be well to translate rebuked in this verse by the same verb as is used in the preceding, but in some instances this cannot be done, since the content of the direct discourse actually follows said. Here the context favors ‘scolded.’
The literal rendering of get behind me has been found in a number of translations to mean ‘get behind to assist me.’ The possibility of this type of interpretation must of course be carefully avoided. The alternative may be ‘get away from me,’ ‘leave me,’ or ‘get away behind me’ (Amganad Ifugao).
The last clause is almost certain to produce difficulty in a literal rendering, for ‘think the thoughts of God’ or ‘think the things of God’ is likely to be relatively meaningless. In some instances one may translate as ‘you are not concerned with what God wants but with what men want’ or ‘you are not thinking as God thinks, but as men think.’
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 .