What Does John 17:5 Mean?
And now, O Father, clothe me in weight at your own side, with the weight I had beside you before the world was.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.THE KEY
The glory Jesus asks to share is already his with the Father before the world exists, so creation does not begin their shared life.
THE MEANING
You encounter glory here as shared presence and weight: the Son is with the Father in the glory he had with him before the world. The world’s beginning does not mark the beginning of this shared life.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that glory originates in public recognition: here it is already shared before the world exists.
THE ROOT
δόξα
doxa
GROWS FROM
δοξ
dox
Weight, honor, and reputation.
“Glory” can sound like acclaim bestowed from outside, but doxa carries the sense of weight and honor. Here that weight belongs to a shared presence with the Father before the world begins.
ALSO GROWS
dokeō: to think, seem, or consider
δοκέω
This related form connects glory with what is regarded or recognized, giving the word a dimension of honor and standing.
doxazō: to glorify or honor
δοξάζω
This verb is the action Jesus asks for: the Father’s own presence makes the shared glory manifest.
THE PATTERN
God’s glory is presence made perceptible within creation, though it is not born from creation.
And he said, Please, show me your weight.And the word became flesh and pitched a tent among us, and we beheld his weight, the weight as of the only-born from the Father, full of favor and truth.For God, who said, Light shall shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts, to give the light of knowing the weight of God in the face of Jesus, the Anointed One.THE THREAD
And the word became flesh and pitched a tent among us, and we beheld his weight, the weight as of the only-born from the Father, full of favor and truth.John 1:14 uses the same Greek word, doxa, for the glory people behold in the Word made flesh. The shared glory named before the world in John 17:5 is now seen dwelling among us.
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