The Word Became Flesh

"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory."
Read that with Jewish ears and it is not one claim. It is four, stacked.
The Word - Memra, the figure the Targums put in every theophany. Dwelt - the verb behind the tabernacle, where God pitched his tent in the middle of the camp. Glory - kavod, the visible weight of God's presence that filled the tent and the temple. Seen - the thing Exodus says will kill you, and which the elders on the mountain did anyway.
All three terms - Memra, Shekinah, Glory - are co-identified in the Targums as ways of naming the Yahweh you can see. John gathers them and attaches them to a person.
Then he closes the paragraph with the point: no one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.
Scripture links:
- John 1:1-3 - "In the beginning was the Word."
- John 1:14 - "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us."
- John 1:18 - "No one has ever seen God... he has made him known."
- Exodus 40:34-35 - "the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle."
The invisible God, and the one you could look at.