¹ “Zion” was understood to be the church, the “redeemed flock” spoken of in line 1 of this movement (and likewise understood to be the “redeemed souls” spoken of in line 8 of movement 11, below). The “habitations” of the church were considered next-worldly and eternal, on the basis of Luke 16:9, “Machet euch Freunde . . . auf dass . . . sie euch aufnehmen in die ewigen Hütten” (“Make yourselves friends [in Christ] . . . so that . . . they [the friends—in heaven] may receive you into the eternal habitations”).

² This sentiment is partly derived from 1 Corinthians 3:11, which in the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day reads “Einen anderen Grund kann zwar niemand legen ausser dem, der gelegt ist, welcher ist Jesus Christus” (“No one can indeed lay any other foundation than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ”).

³ A needlessly clipped version of “lieben,” the nominative plural form of the adjective “liebe” (“dear/beloved”); it is changed to “lieben” in some modern editions.

⁴ This sentiment—that the law of Moses is a burden lifted for Christians—is derived from Acts 15:10, which in the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day reads “Was versuchet ihr denn nun GOTT mit auflegen des Jochs auf der Jünger Hälse, welches weder unsere Väter noch wir haben mügen tragen?” (“Now why then do you [apostles] tempt God with laying of the yoke [of the law of Moses] upon the neck of the [gentile] disciples [of Jesus], which neither our fathers [old Israel] nor we have been able to bear?”); note that “mügen” is employed as a synonym for the more elevated word “vermögen” (“to be able to”).

⁵ “Fathers” here would have been understood as referring to Christians’ “spiritual fathers”—the patriarchs of old Israel. “Unsere Väter” (“our fathers [of Israel]”) is a stock biblical phrase, found notably in Acts 15:10 (see fn. 4, above), Luke 1:72, and Psalm 22.

⁶ What the phrase “im höheren Chor” means is elusive. The Luther Bibles of Bach’s day labeled each of the Psalms 120–134 “Ein Lied im höhern Chor” (“A song in the superior choir”). In the original Hebrew, the superscription is, literally, “A song of ascents.” The Calov Bible, which Bach owned, offers an explanation for Luther’s rendering of the Hebrew label: “[Das Lied] wird vom Aufsteigen also genennet, entweder wegen Aufsteigung und Erhebung der Herzen, in diesen XV. Liedern, . . . oder wegen der Höhe und Fürtrefflichkeit desselbigen” (“[The song] is so named from the ascent, either on account of the ascending and lifting up of the hearts in these fifteen songs, . . . or on account of the height and excellence of these songs”).

⁷ The “oath” is that of Luke 1:73, “den Eid, den er geschworen hat unserm Vater Abraham” (“the oath that he [God] had sworn to our [ancestral] father Abraham”). In Genesis 22:16–18, God swore that he would bless Abraham and his posterity. This promise was believed to be entirely fulfilled by the coming of God’s messiah, Jesus.

⁸ The archaic adverb “längstens” was often used in poetry as a synonym for “längst” (“long ago”), especially in situations where an extra syllable was needed. It was also widely used in this way in everyday speech. In what sticklers held to be right usage, however, “längstens” properly meant “no longer than” or “no later than.”

⁹ “Himmelsauen” (“heaven’s meadows”) and “himmlische Auen” (“heavenly meadows”) were stock phrases in the Lutheranism of Bach’s day and earlier.

¹⁰ The expression “children of Adam” assumes not only that all human beings are descended from the Adam and Eve of the creation story in the biblical book of Genesis, but also that all humans have inherited from them a sin-stained essence in need of the redemption that was brought by the sacrificial death of God’s son and messiah, Jesus, a deliverance appropriated in faith through “Gnade” (“mercy/grace”).

¹¹ In the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day, Psalm 119:176 reads “Ich bin ein verirrtes und verlorenes Schaf” (“I [the psalmist] am an erring and lost sheep”). Lutheran commentary understood the first adjective to refer to being mislead or having gone astray in the sense of sinning, and the second to being near ruin in the sense of being likely to be punished eternally for sin and unbelief.

¹² “Sündenschlafe” (literally, “sleep of sin”) is a semi-technical early Lutheran theological term that refers to the complacency of the person who is corrupted in essence by sin but is obliviously “asleep” to this problem and needs to “wake up.”

¹³ A stanza of “Tröstet, tröstet meine Lieben,” closely based on Luther’s translation of Isaiah 40:3-4.

¹⁴ Lutheranism interpreted this passage, derived from Isaiah 40:3, metaphorically: the “valleys” meant hearts first made low by the law of Moses but then lifted up by the gospel of Jesus, and the “mountains” meant hearts first made proud by the hypocritical feelings of righteousness in doing good works but then made humble by the recognition of sin. In the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day the scriptural passage reads “Alle Thal sollen erhöht werden und alle Berge und Hügel sollen geniedrigt werden” (“All valleys shall be lifted up and all mountains and hills shall be made low”). These sentiments are quoted in slightly different wording by John the Baptist in Luke 3:4-6, announcing—as “a voice in the wilderness”—the coming of God’s messiah, Jesus.

¹⁵ These lines are based on the Song of Zechariah, in Luke 1:68-79, where “the God of Israel” (in Christian nomenclature, “God the father”) is praised for keeping his covenant with Abraham, the father of the people of God. Regarding “our fathers,” see fn. 5, above.

¹⁶ Some modern editions read “dem schwachen Menschen” (singular; literally, “to the weak person”), but Bach’s materials read “den schwachen Menschen” (plural; literally, “to the weak persons”).

¹⁷ As commanded by the covenant with God, in Isaiah 59:21.

¹⁸ Poetically clipped version of “einen” (i.e., the masculine accusative form of the indefinite article).

¹⁹ This line apparently combines two biblical sentiments: that no one knows “the hour” when the end time will arrive (Mark 13:32), and that “the kingdom of heaven is near in approach” (Matthew 3:2, 4:17, and 10:7, in the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day, “das Himmelreich ist nahe herbei kommen”).

²⁰ See fn. 9, above.

²¹ Without knowledge of their biblical background, the sense of these lines will be elusive. They draw on an expression from the female lover in the Song of Songs 1:5, which in the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day reads “Ich bin schwarz, aber gar lieblich, . . . wie die Hütten Kedars” (“I am black but very lovely, like the habitations of Kedar [i.e., like the color of their nomadic tents woven from the wool of black goats]”). Sometimes the underlying Hebrew word in Song of Songs 1:5 that Luther rendered with the adversative “aber” (“but”) clearly means the conjunctive “and,” and other times clearly means “but.” Whether “but” or “and” should be used for Song of Songs 1:5 has been much debated since the beginnings of biblical interpretation and translation, and this verse is especially controversial today. In Christianity, the Song of Songs was read as an allegory of the love of the “bridgegroom-king,” Jesus, for his end-time “bride,” the church and/or the Christian soul. Lutheranism, and hence this cantata’s poetry, subscribed to the leading early church father Augustine’s adversative-inspired notion that the bride/church is “Nigra per naturam, formosa per gratium” (“black [i.e., taken here to connote “sinful”] by nature, [but] beautiful [i.e., saved] by [God’s] grace”).

²² “Angenehme” here is a biblical expression meaning “acceptable (or, ‘propitious’),” not “pleasant.” The cantata’s poetry derives its language from 2 Corinthians 6:2, “Jetzt ist die angenehme Zeit, jetzt ist der Tag des Heils” (“Now is the acceptable/propitious time [of mercy], now is the day of salvation [in Jesus]”). Luther described the “angenehme Zeit” as a Hebraism referring to God’s “Evangelische Zeit” (“time of the gospel”), marked by forgiveness and mercy in Jesus. The Luther Bibles of Bach’s day, for example, render Psalm 69:14 as “Ich aber bete, HERR, zu dir zur angenehmen Zeit” (“But I pray, Lord, to you at the acceptable/propitious time”).

²³ The line “von diesem Tod des Leibes” (literally, “from this death of the body”) is a curious variation on the famous expression in Romans 9:27, “wer wird mich erlösen von dem Leibe dieses Todes?” (“who will redeem me from the body of this death”), apparently with the same intended meaning. 1 Corinthians 15:44, in the rendering of the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day, states: “hat man einen natürlichen Leib, so hat man auch einen geistlichen Leib” (“if one has a natural [earthly] body, then one also has a spiritual [heavenly] body [i.e., the natural body is transformed into the spiritual body at the resurrection of the dead, in the end time]”).