Father was the word by which Jesus addressed God at the beginning of this prayer (verse 1). In Greek, this entire verse reads literally “and now glorify me, Father, in your presence with the glory which I had with you before the world was created.” The phrase “and now” (Good News Translation now) is used to strengthen the request made in verse 1. This conclusion is supported by the observation that the pronouns you and me are emphatic in the Greek sentence structure (“You” is not expressed explicitly in Good News Translation, though it is implicit in the verb Give). Here again Goodspeed makes explicit the idea of doing honor (“Now, Father, do such honor to me in your presence as I had done me there before the world existed”). Barclay reads “And now, Father, give me in your own presence the glory which I had with you before the world came into existence” and New American Bible has “Do you now, Father, give me glory at your side, a glory I had with you before the world began.” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch telescopes by not repeating the word glory and by seeing essentially the same meaning in the verse: “Father, give me now again the glory which I had with you before the world was created.”

In this context it is not possible to treat Give me glory in the same way as in contexts where the focus is upon the revelation of Christ’s glory to the people of the world. The emphasis here is upon the glorious state which Christ had before the incarnation, and thus quite a different type of rendering must be employed. Moreover, a literal rendering of “giving glory” is usually impossible. The more common type of expression would be causative, for example, “cause me to be glorious” or “cause me to be honored” or “show honor to me” or even “honor me.”

In your presence may be rendered “where you are” or “there where you are.”

Since, in some languages, glory cannot be used as a noun, the explanatory clause, the same glory I had with you before the world was made, may be restructured to read “honor me in the same way you did before the world was made” or “… before you made the world.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of John. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1980. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .