¹ Some modern editions of the cantata have mistranscribed “feuchtet” (“waters,” “moistens”) as “fruchtet” (“fructifies”).

² Isaiah 55:10-11.

³ Here “ihm” appears to be the dative form of “es” (“it,” a thing), not of “er” (which, depending on context, in English could be “him,” a person; or “it,” a thing). This passage says that what prospers is the word of the Lord, although it would follow that the receivers of the word will prosper as well.

⁴ The boldface lines in this movement are reordered excerpts from the Litany, Luther’s German translation and substantial revision of the early medieval Litany of All Saints. A litany is a series of sung invocations and supplications, each responded to by a phrase such as “Lord have mercy,” or “Hear us, dear Lord God.”

⁵ The expressions “heart,” “sowing seed,” “good soil,” and “bringing forth fruit, a hundredfold” are metaphors having to do with spreading “God’s word.” All of this language comes from the parable of the sower in Luke 8:4-8 and its appended interpretation in Luke 8:11-15, all part of the gospel reading assigned to the liturgical date for which this cantata was composed.

⁶ In Lutheran usage, “helfen” can carry the sense of “to help” or “to save” (i.e., to bring spiritual salvation), or both.

⁷ This is a nearly verbatim quotation of the Luther Bible’s rendering of Psalm 118:25.

⁸ The expression “du wollest” with complementary infinitive was often employed in prayers and requests, and accordingly “Du wollest” is not a statement but a plea; here it means “May you,” not “You may want to” or “You would.”

⁹ The sense of this line is derived from 1 Thessalonians 1:5, which in the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day reads “unser Evangelium ist bei euch gewesen, nicht allein im Wort, sondern beide in der Kraft und in dem Heiligen Geist” (“our gospel has been with you not in the word [of God] only, but [also] both in the power [of God] and in the Holy Spirit”).

¹⁰ The verb “wehren” is apparently being used here in its older German sense of “to prohibit/disallow” (as, e.g., in Numbers 30:5).

¹¹ “Verkehren” is being used here in its older sense of “to pervert,” “to turn the wrong way.”

¹² The word “Sinn” is apparently being used here in the sense of the common expression “Sinn und Zweck” (“sense and purpose”).

¹³ The sense of this line is dependent on Luke 8:12, “darnach kommt der Teufel und nimmt das Wort von ihrem Herzen, auf dass sie nicht glauben und selig werden” (“after this [heeding, by some, of God’s word] the devil comes and takes the word from their heart, so that they do not believe and do not become blessed/saved”).

¹⁴ “Treten” here is a clipped form of “zertreten” (“to trample”), a verb used in connection with Satan in Genesis 3:15 and Romans 16:20.

¹⁵ “Zeitlich” here means “temporal” and this-worldly (as opposed to “eternal” and next-worldly), not “temporary” or “passing” (as opposed to “lasting”).

¹⁶ These lines project 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). What Lutherans adamantly could not tolerate were the Catholic and Muslim beliefs that good works do play a role in justifying eternal salvation.

¹⁷ “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., through the successful teaching of false doctrine).

¹⁸ The German text of this line, on the face of it, would appear to be saying something like “the word [of God] can achieve no power.” For Lutheranism, however, any notion that God’s word lacks power would have been considered heretical. “Gelangen,” then, is most likely being used here in one of its older senses, as a synonym for “anlangen” (“to arrive at,” “to touch”). And “Kraft” is most likely being used in the time-honored philosophical sense of the “Kräfte der Seele” (“the faculties/powers of the soul”). The “faculties of the soul” include the will and the intellect.

¹⁹ The Lutheranism of Bach’s day made a distinction between a “vernünftige Wollust” (“reasonable pleasure”) that is of God and a “verderbte Wollust” (“corrupted pleasure”) that is of the world.

²⁰ “Berücken” is apparently being used in its older sense of “to ensnare” (as, e.g., in Ecclesiastes 9:12), such that “Netze . . . stricken . . . zu berücken” would be speaking of “nets that are woven to catch/ensnare,” not of “webs that are spun to captivate/bewitch.” To be caught by the world and Satan is much more dire than to be captivated.

²¹ A stanza of “Durch Adams Fall ist ganz verderbt.”

²² Regarding the expression “du wollest/wollst,” see fn. 8, above.

²³ The language of this line is derived from Psalm 119:43, “nimm ja nicht von meinem Munde das Wort der Wahrheit” (“[Lord], yes, take not from my mouth the word of truth”) and John 17:17, where Jesus prays to God the father, “Heilige sie in deiner Wahrheit; dein Wort ist die Wahrheit” (“Make them [my followers] holy in your truth; your word is truth”).

²⁴ The fuller meaning of this line is dependent on John 8:51, where Jesus says “So jemand mein Wort wird halten, der wird den Tod nicht sehen ewiglich” (“If anyone will keep my word [i.e., the ‘word of the gospel,’ Acts 15:7], he will not see death eternally”).