¹ The title stanza of Martin Luther’s three-stanza hymn, later augmented with additional stanzas to be sung to the same tune, along with verses of Luther’s hymn “Verleih uns Frieden gnädiglich.” This was all considered one chorale despite the diversity of author, prosody, and melody, and BWV 126 draws on the whole complex.

² “Mord” might be understood here not only as physical murder but also as soul-damning, as in the expression “einen Seelenmord begehen” (“to occasion the eternal damnation of a soul,” e.g., by dint of the successful teaching of false doctrine).

³ This line projects religious and political polemic against “the Pope” (i.e., Roman Catholicism, but also the political regimes associated with this religion) and “the Turk” (i.e., the Turkish people and their regime, but also the Muslim religion associated with this ethnic group). In addition to what they conceived of as the Pope’s and Turk’s murderous warmongering, Lutherans adamantly could not tolerate the Catholic and Muslim beliefs that good works do play a role in justifying persons for eternal salvation.

⁴ This aria text is a loose paraphrase of the content in the second stanza of Luther’s hymn “Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort.”

⁵ The B section of this aria text may be drawing on Luther’s rendering of Sirach 35:36 (which is 35:25 in other Luther Bibles of Bach’s day), “Und [der HERR] räche sein Volk und erfreue sie mit seiner Barmherzigkeit” (“And [the LORD] would avenge his people [i.e., prophetically, the church] and would gladden them with his mercy”).

⁶ This line draws for its sense on prophetic application of Psalm 80:7, “unsre Feinde spotten unser” (“[God,] our enemies mock us [who are your people]”); Lutheranism taught that the text of Psalm 80 concerns God’s protecting his church.

⁷ The third (and final) stanza of Luther’s hymn “Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort.”

⁸ This use of the word “Häuflein” (“little band”) is drawing on the sense of the biblical expression “ihr armer Haufe Israel” (“you wretched/poor band, Israel”) in Isaiah 41:14. In traditional Christian interpretation, the name of the people of God here, “Israel,” was understood to mean “Christians,” “the church.”

⁹ “Wert” is used here not in the sense of “worthy” (“deserving”) but “valued/treasured.”

¹⁰ Psalm 48:1-2 speak of “die Stadt unsers Gottes, auf seinem heiligen Berge, der Berg Zion” (“the city of our God, on his holy mount, the mount Zion”), i.e. the city of Jerusalem. Lutheranism taught that God’s “earthly Jerusalem” of the ancient Israelites was a prefiguring of its antitype, Christ’s “spiritual Jerusalem,” namely and specifically what Lutherans called “die streitende Kirche Christi” (“Christ’s ‘church militant’ [on earth]”), as opposed to “die triumphierende Kirche” (“the ‘church triumphant’ [in heaven]”).

¹¹ In the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day, 2 Corinthians 11:26 (which was part of the Epistle reading in the liturgical occasion that this cantata was designed for) speaks of being “in Fährlichkeit unter den falschen Brüdern” ( “[the apostle Paul’s having been] in peril among the false brothers [in Christ]”). The “false brothers” are described in Galatians 2:4-9 as Judaizing Christians who wrongly insisted that gentile male believers in Jesus must be circumcised and who thereby sowed division within the nascent church. The term is employed in the cantata libretto by extension to refer to those Christians who threaten the unity of the church, especially through the teaching of false doctrine.

¹² “Der ärgste Feind” means “the worst enemy” not in the sense of “the biggest enemy” but of “the morally most bad/depraved enemy.”

¹³ Compare the sentiments of 1 Peter 5:8-9, where the author says to the elders of the churches as well as to the rest of the flock: “Seid nüchtern und wacht: euer Widersacher, der Teufel, geht umher wie ein brüllender Löwe und sucht, welchen er verschlinge; dem widersteht fest im Glauben, und wisset, dass ebendieselbigen Leiden über eure Brüder in der Welt gehen” (“Be sober-minded and watch [out]: your antagonist, the devil, walks about like a roaring lion and seeks whom he may devour; resist him steadfastly in the [Christian] faith, and know that in the world your brothers [in Christ] go through the selfsame sufferings”).

¹⁴ The New Testament continually refers to the Christian community, or the church, as the “members” of “the body of Christ” (e.g., 1 Corinthians 12:27). The Lutherans of Bach’s day and earlier considered themselves to be the proper Christian community, subject to continual persecution especially from the Pope.

¹⁵ The language and sense of this line is drawn from Sirach 1:13, “Wer den HERRN fürchtet, dem wirds wohlgehen in der letzten Not, und er wird endlich den Segen behalten” (“Whoever fears the LORD, for him it will go well in the final [hour of] need [i.e., one’s death], and he will in the end obtain the blessing [of eternal salvation]”).

¹⁶ As proclaimed in 1 Corinthians 15:26, “Der letzte Feind, der aufgehaben wird, ist der Tod” (“The final enemy that will be annihilated is death”).

¹⁷ This aria text is a loose paraphrase of the content in the fourth stanza of “Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort,” a stanza added to Luther’s three-stanza hymn shortly after his lifetime.

¹⁸ The uses of the verbs “stürzen” (“to topple”) and “zunichtemachen” (“to annihilate”; literally, “to make [something] to [be] nothing”) in lines 1–2 are in singular command forms, and the sense that it is God who is being addressed with both verbs (just as was the case in the previous three movements) is confirmed by taking notice of the biblical allusions in lines 1–2 to Psalm 73:18-19, “[Gott,] du stürzest sie [die Gottlosen] zu Boden; wie werden sie so plötzlich zunichte!” (“you [God] topple them [the godless] to the ground; how they are so suddenly come to naught!”).

¹⁹ “Stolze” here does not mean “pride” or “arrogance,” as its preceding adjective does not have a masculine singular ending (which, if intended, would not have required clipping a syllable to accommodate the scansion). “Stolze” is apparently a plural here, analogous to the use of the word “Deutsche” in the cliché formulation “Deutsche sind pünktlich” (“Germans are punctual”), as apposed to “Die Deutschen sind pünktlich” (“The Germans are punctual”). “Stolze” (“proud persons”) and “die Stolzen” (“the proud persons”) are portrayed as enemies in the Luther Bible’s renderings of Psalm 54:5, “Denn Stolze setzen sich wider mich” (“For arrogant/proud persons set themselves against me”), and Psalm 86:14, “Gott, es setzen sich die Stolzen wider mich” (“God, the arrogant/proud persons set themselves against me”).

²⁰ The antecedent for “sie” is the word “Stolze,” and because “Stolze” is not a feminine singular noun, the “sie” here must mean not “it” but “they” (i.e., referring to “proud persons,” not to “pride”).

²¹ The phrase “was sie erdacht” line is sometimes rendered in English as “what it has devised/contrived,” the antecedent “Stolze” having been apparently mistranslated as “pride” (which would have required the German masculine “er” rather than the feminine “sie” for the English “it”). Because there is no form of the verb “erdenken” that uses “erdacht” unattached to some form of the auxiliaries “haben” (“to have”) or “werden” (“to be[come]”), the poet’s use of “erdacht” here has to be a clipped form of the verb. And since its antecedent, “Stolze,” is not singular—grammatically requiring either “was er/sie erdacht[e],” or “was er/sie erdacht [hat/hatte/habe/hätte],” or “er/sie [wird] erdacht [haben],” or “er/sie [werde/würde] bedacht [haben]”—but plural, the contextually most likely construal of “was sie erdacht” would be “was sie erdacht haben” (“what they [‘the proud’] have contrived”).

²² According to Numbers 16, Korah the Levite and his cohort revolted against the rights of God’s proper leaders, Moses and Aaron, and in punishment from God for this sin, the earth opened its mouth as a chasm and swallowed them up.

²³ This recitative text is a very loose paraphrase of the content in the fifth stanza of “Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort,” a stanza that was added to Luther’s three-stanza hymn shortly after his lifetime.

²⁴ “Vor/Für etwas wachen” (“to take watchful care for something”) is apparently an alternative expression for “über etwas wachen” (“to watch over something”). There is no real difference in meaning, and presumably “vor” was chosen here to accommodate the scansion.

²⁵ Grammatically, it is unclear if “du des heilgen Wortes Lehren fruchbar machst” means “you [God] do [indeed] make fruitful the [instructors’ endeavors in their] teaching of the holy word” (i.e., such that “[das] Lehren” [“teaching”] is a gerund), or if it means “you [God] do [indeed] make fruitful the holy word’s doctrines” (i.e., such that “[die] Lehren” [“teachings”] is the plural of the noun “[die] Lehre” [“teaching,” an individual belief in a set of beliefs]). We have opted for the latter sense on the basis of Colossians 1:5-6, “das Wort der Wahrheit im Evangelio, das … ist fruchtbar” (“the word of truth in the gospel that … is fruitful”).

²⁶ In older German the word “denn” (or “dann”) was sometimes used as a synonym for the adverb “mithin” (“therefore,” “consequently”).

²⁷ These lines draw on the language of Luther’s idiosyncratic rendering of Sirach 50:25-26, “Er [Gott] verleihe immerdar Friede zu unser Zeit in Israel, und dass seine Gnade stets bei uns bleibe” (“May he [God] in our time grant peace in Israel forever, and [may God also grant] that his mercy/grace might ever abide with us”).

²⁸ Lines 1–5 of this movement are Luther’s versification of the antiphon “Da pacem Domine,” and lines 6–11 are an additional (now unrhyming and unmetrical) strophe (also, set to a different melody) added shortly after his lifetime. These two strophes were sometimes printed together with Luther’s three-stanza hymn “Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort,” along with the above-mentioned two stanzas that had been added to “Erhalt uns, Herr” shortly after Luther’s lifetime.

²⁹ The word “Fürst’n” here is not the singular “Fürst[i]n” but the (dative) plural “Fürst[e]n.” The phrase “Gib unsern Fürst’n” means not “Give [to] our Princess” (which would have been “Gib unsrer Fürst’n”) but “Give [to] our princes.”

³⁰ These lines draw extensively on 1 Timothy 2:1-2, which in the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day reads “für die Könige und für alle Obrigkeit, auf dass wir ein geruhiges [or, ‘geruhliches’] und stilles Leben führen mögen in aller Gottseligkeit und Ehrbarkeit” (“[Make prayers and give thanks] for the kings and for all [secular] authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and honorability”). In older English, the equivalent of the German word “Ehrbarkeit” was “honesty,” but in this case the word “honesty” was understood not in its sense of “truthfulness” but of “respectability/honorability.”