¹ The word “selber” (“himself”) does not appear in the poet’s reprinted libretto; it was probably left out by accident: the scansion of this line seems to require more than six syllables. All the other original sources include the “selber.”

² The first stanza of this hymn. In the original text reprint its lines are interweaved with those of the new poem, as here.

³ In the Hebrew Bible the city of Jerusalem is personified as a woman, “bat-siyyon” (“Daughter Zion”; rendered in the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day as “die Tochter Zion” [literally, “the daughter ‘Zion’”]). In traditional Christian interpretation, “Daughter Zion” referred to the ancient messiah-expecting and eventual Jesus-acknowledging church in the sense of the people of God as an aggregate. Some modern editions of this libretto give the designation not as the librettist’s “die Tochter Zion” (“Daughter Zion”) but as “die Töchter Zion” (“the Daughters of Zion”), i.e., with an umlaut added over the “o” making a plural; see also the note, below, regarding “ihr Töchter” (“you Daughters [of Zion/Jerusalem])” in the first line of this movement’s poetry.

⁴ “The believers” referred to the church in the sense of all the individual ancient faithful expecters of God’s messiah, along with the eventual followers of Jesus. Some modern editions of this libretto give the designation not as the librettist’s “die Gläubigen” (“the Believers”) but as “Gläubigen Seelen” with the translation “Faithful Souls.”

⁵ In this line, “you Daughters [of Zion]” (which in Song of Songs 3:11 is rendered in the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day either as “ihr Töchter zu Zion” or “ihr Töchter Zion”) are exhorted by their mother, “Daughter Zion,” to lament Jesus’s crucifixion. “The Daughters of Zion” were understood in Christian interpretation allegorically as the Christian church in general (“the believers”). They were traditionally associated or conflated with the “Daughters of Jerusalem,” who in Luke 23:28 lament Jesus’s crucifixion. It was said of Jerusalem in Galatians 4:26 that “das Jerusalem, das droben ist, das ist die Freie; die ist unser aller Mutter” (“the Jerusalem that is above [in heaven], that [ideal city] is the free [woman]; she [the free woman, Daughter Zion] is the mother of us all [i.e., we believers in Jesus who are the daughters of Daughter Zion]”).

⁶ The “bride” of the Song of Songs in the Hebrew Bible was understood in Christian interpretation allegorically as the church in general, whose “bridegroom” is Christ.

⁷ Jesus as “lamb” originates from John 1:29, “Siehe, das ist Gottes Lamm, welches der Welt Sünde traget” (“Look, this one is God’s [Passover] lamb, which bears the sin of the world”). The specific sense of the librettist’s line is derived from Isaiah 53:7, “da er gestraft und gemartert ward, tat er seinen Mund nicht auf: wie ein Lamm, das zur Schlachtbank geführt wird” (“when he was punished and tortured, he did not open his mouth, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter-bench”), a text for which in traditional Christian interpretation the “he” is applied prophetically to Jesus as God’s Passover lamb.

⁸ Jesus as a “innocent lamb” is derived from Luther’s rendering of 1 Peter 1:18-19, “[Ihr] wisset, dass ihr … erlöst seid … mit dem teuren Blut Christi, als eines unschuldigen und unbefleckten Lammes” (“[You followers of Jesus]” know that you … are redeemed … with the precious blood of Christ, as of an innocent and unspotted [sacrificial/Passover] lamb”). The underlying New Testament Greek word for Luther’s “unschuldig” here was “amomos,” a cultic term literally denoting the physical perfection of a sacrificial animal, but which was also used as an ethical term metaphorically denoting the moral blamelessness of a person.

⁹ According to the Gospel of John (19:17), Jesus carried the cross himself (i.e., apparently unaided the whole time), but Matthew 27:32 (recited in movement 55, below) relates that the Roman soldiers coerced Simon of Cyrene to bear the cross for Jesus.

¹⁰ Matthew 26:1b-2.

¹¹ That is, brought to a close perhaps not just the words of the previous chapters in the Gospel of Matthew but of his verbal preaching of the entire gospel message. The biblical text in the St. Matthew Passion libretto sticks very closely to Luther’s rendering of Matthew 26–27, but Luther gave Matthew 26:1 as “Und es begab sich, da Jesus alle diese Reden vollendet hatte, sprach er zu seinen Jüngern” (“And it came to pass, when Jesus had brought all these discourses [plural] to a close, he declared to his disciples”).

¹² Luther’s use of “Oster” (“Easter”) here is apparently meant to distance the observance of this festival by Jesus and his followers as much as possible from the Jewishness of Passover. Luther and Lutheranism equivocated on whether the word “Oster” referred to the (Christian) festival of “Easter” or to the (Jewish) festival of “Passover,” with the latter also understood as prefiguring the former. Luther used both “Oster” and “Passah” for “Passover” in his translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, but he used only “Oster” in his New Testament. It may have been largely for its lack of Jewish associations that Luther went with the non-biblical word “Oster,” derived from the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring, “Eostre” or “Ostara.” In older German, “Passah” was even defined as “das judische Osterfest” (“the Jewish Easter festival”); and in English, Passover has sometimes been referred to as “Jewish Easter.” See also, at the first sentence of movement 9, below, the footnote regarding the Festival of Unleavened Bread and its relation to Passover/Easter.

¹³ The phrase “Son of Man” had a variety of meanings in the Bible, and the import of its New Testament usages has been much contested. In any event, in its application to Jesus, the phrase was often especially meant to indicate his human nature.

¹⁴ The first stanza of this hymn.

¹⁵ “Da” had a wide variety of meanings in older German. At the beginning of this narrative portion it means “then,” as in “next.” Here it is an intensifier particle, inserted by Luther as a conventional element of story-telling, now archaic, of pointing to a specific character for dramatic emphasis, i.e., to highlight the character in a more immediate and vivid scene. Later German Bibles give the more neutral reading “der hiess Kaiphas” (“who was called Caiaphas”).

¹⁶ In BWV 244.1, this reads “das” (neuter singular, as in the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day) with the antecedent “das Weib.” In BWV 244.2, it reads “die” (feminine singular); this was common as a reflection of the sex of the person rather than the grammatical gender of the word. Both, in any event, translate as “who.”

¹⁷ Matthew 26:3-13.

¹⁸ Luther Bibles of Bach’s day use “die Hohenpriester” (plural) to refer to the rotation of priests who worked in the Jerusalem Temple, and “der Hohepriester” (singular) to the head priest of them all. Partly to avoid potential narrative confusion, it became conventional in English translations of the Bible to call the former “the chief priests” and the latter “the high priest.” The original Greek of the New Testament text gives “hoi archiereis” (literally, “the chief priests”) and “ho archiereus” (literally, “the chief priest”).

¹⁹ This group consisted of men who copied biblical writings on scrolls and were learned in Mosaic laws and teachings. The standard English translation “scribe” might seem to overemphasize the writing component of their duties, while Luther’s rendering “Schriftgelehrten” (literally, “scholars of scripture”) would seem to place the greater emphasis on their biblical learning.

²⁰ That is, the leaders hoped to wait until after the festival. (Jerusalem at this point, a few days before the festival, would already have been filled with pilgrims.) Note that in older German, “during the festival” was given with the accusative, “auf das Fest,” whereas in the German of modern Bibles this is given with the dative, “auf/bei dem Fest.”

²¹ Luther emphatically understood this festival to be “Easter,” not “Passover” (see the footnote in movement 2, above, regarding “the [Jewish] Easter”), and this is reflected in his New Testament translation. But the (Jewish) chief priests would of course, even in Luther’s rendering of the narrative, be referring to the festival (if they were to name it explicitly) as “Passover,” not “Easter.”

²² In modern German, “köstlich” means “delicious,” or “exquisite,” or “amusing,” but in older German it could be used as a synonym for “teuer” or “kostbar” (“precious” in the sense of “expensive”).

²³ In older German, “Nardenwasser” was sometimes used as a synonym for “Nardenöl” (“nard sap,” “nard oil,” or “spikenard”), a botanical extract. The parallel gospel passage in Mark 14:3 was rendered in the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day as “da kam ein Weib, die hatte ein Glass mit ungefälschtem und köstlichem Narden-Wasser; und sie . . . goss es auf sein Haupt” (“there came a woman who had a glass jar with genuine and precious nard water; and she . . . poured it on his head”). In Judith 10:3 and 16:10 the phrase “with precious ointment” was also rendered in the Luther Bibles as “mit köstlichem Wasser” (later German Bibles gave this as “mit kostbarem Balsam,” among other substitutes).

²⁴ That is, this good news of salvation through the suffering Christ.

²⁵ “Fromm” generally means “pious.” In older German it can also mean “upright,” as e.g. in Psalm 25:8 (which is alluded to in line 5 of movement 25, below), “Der HERR ist gut und fromm” (“The LORD is good and upright”). Further, in older German it can also mean “good,” as e.g. in the case of the “good wife” or “good woman” of Sirach 7:21 (Luther Bibles of Bach’s day, “einer frommen Frauen”); she is “good” in the sense of being willing to fulfill her duties and of being skilled at doing them (consider, too, e.g., such expressions in German as “ein frommes Pferd,” which refers not to a pious or upright horse but one that is good for riding). Since the good deed of anointing Jesus for burial is also a religious act, perhaps all these senses of “fromm” are meant here.

²⁶ “Mit Salben,” with the “n,” is (old-fashioned) dative singular (“with salve”), not plural—the woman was not depicted as using several ointments or oils in preparing Jesus for the grave.

²⁷ The etymology of “entzwei” points to something “in two pieces,” but the word came to mean “in many pieces,” as probably intended here.

²⁸ That is, the sort of sacrificial or anointing spices alluded to in Ephesians 5:2, “Christus uns hat geliebt, und sich selbst dargegeben für uns zur Gabe und Opfer, Gott zu einem süssen Geruch” (“Christ loved us, and presented himself for us as a gift and offering, a sweet aroma [of incense] to God”).

²⁹ The word “angenehm” can mean “pleasant,” “comfortable,” and the like. But here the sense, sometimes used by Luther, is of “acceptable” or “befitting.”

³⁰ Matthew 26:14-16.

³¹ In very old German, “Silberling” meant “a thing/item of silver,” but those “things” apparently did not include coins. When the word had otherwise already essentially gone out of use, Luther nonetheless made use of it, frequently, in his Bible translation as a way of creating a special designation for ancient Jewish coinage. The underlying word here in the Gospel of Matthew is “argurion,” which can mean “silver [in general],” “money [in general],” or “piece of silver [i.e., a coin].” When this Greek word refers to coinage, Luther rendered it as “Silberlinge” if the money sources are Jewish, but as “Groschen” if the money source involves any gentiles.

³² In BWV 244.1, in an early scribal copy of the libretto, and in the poet’s reprinted libretto, this reads “aus deiner Brust gesogen” (“has suckled from your breast”); in BWV 244.2, it reads “an deiner Brust gesogen” (“has suckled at your breast”), but in m. 39 it still reads “aus” (it is unclear whether the revision in BWV 244.2 was made to soften the meatphorical language, even if only slightly, of being breastfed by Jesus).

³³ “Herz bluten” (literally, “heart bleeding”) means “to mourn.”

³⁴ Jesus is here depicted as a maternal caretaker; seventeenth and eighteenth-century Lutheran writings frequently speak of the “Mutterherzen Jesu” (“motherly heart of Jesus”).

³⁵ John 13:27 says that at Jesus’s last supper with his disciples “fuhr der Satan in ihn” (“Satan entered into him [Judas]”). The “Schlange” (“serpent”) of Genesis 3 who lured Adam and Eve into sin was traditionally equated with Satan.

³⁶ In BWV 244.1, this reads “hie” (as in the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day); in BWV 244.2, it reads “hier.” Both translate as “here.”

³⁷ Matthew 26:17-22.

³⁸ Literally, “the first day [of the Festival] of Sweet Breads.” The word “sweet” is used for “unleavened” likewise in older English Bibles, as opposed to the word “sour-dough” for “leavened.” (The early sixteenth-century English translation of William Tyndale here reads, “The fyrst daye of swete breed.”) There is considerable confusion over the day and year marking Jesus’s final Passover (biblically, the 14th day of the month, when the paschal lambs were sacrificed) and the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread (biblically, the 15th, when the lambs were eaten). “Passover” (which, in his New Testament, Luther called “Oster” [“Easter”]) came at some point to be the name for the festival itself. In any event, all four gospels appear to agree that Jesus died on the day before a sabbath; the accounts in Matthew, Mark, and Luke place the Passover meal on a Thursday evening, with Jesus dying in the daytime after it, whereas the narrative in John places the Passover meal on Friday evening, with Jesus dying in the daytime before it (i.e., in John the final meal Jesus shares with his disciples is likewise on a Thursday evening, but, unlike in the other gospels, it is not a Passover meal).

³⁹ See the footnote regarding “Oster” (“Easter”) at the end of movement 2, above.

⁴⁰ Literally, “My time is here.” The Greek text in Matthew denotes “My time is at hand” or “My time is near.”

⁴¹ “Huben an” is older-German form of “hoben an,” the past tense of “anheben.” One of the many meanings of “anheben” in older German was “to begin [to do something],” which corresponds to the sense of the corresponding verb employed in the original Greek text here, in Matthew 26:22. Luther’s formulation “huben an … und sagten zu ihm” would have made more sense, however, as “huben an … zu ihm zu sagen” (“began … to say to him”). So it seems that Luther, by using not “zu sagen” (“to say”) but “und sagten” (“and said”) in connection with “huben an,” had in mind one of the other senses of “anheben,” namely “to get up.” We have opted for a sort of compromise, “they started up, … saying to him.” It is worth noting that the Greek source texts of the parallel passage (including the Erasmus 1519 edition of the Greek text of the New Testament that Luther worked from), Mark 14:19, read literally “They began to be grieved and to say to him, one by one, ‘Surely not I?’”; Luther in this case ignored the source word for “began,” rendering the verse as “Und sie wurden traurig, und sagten zu ihm, einer nach dem anderen: Bin ichs? und der andere: Bin ichs?” (“And they became sad, and said to him, one after the other: ‘Am I the one?’ And the other: ‘Am I the one?’”).

⁴² A stanza of “O Welt, sieh hier dein Leben.”

⁴³ In BWV 244.1, this reads with the two-syllable “hinfort” (“henceforth”); in BWV 244.2, it reads, as in the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day, with the three-syllable “von nun an” (“from this time onward”).

⁴⁴ Matthew 26:23-29.

⁴⁵ With regard to the “Son of Man,” see the note at the end of movement 2, above.

⁴⁶ This is said of the “Suffering Servant” of Isaiah 52–53, whom Luther identifies with the “Son of Man” mentioned here in Matthew’s gospel and in Daniel 7:13. In the parallel passage the Gospel of Luke does not say this was foretold in scripture; Luke 22:22 instead states that “des Menschen Sohn geht zwar hin, wie es beschlossen ist” (“the Son of Man is going forth, indeed, as it was determined [i.e., by God]”). The theological import of both Matthew and Luke is in any case the same: Jesus’s death on the cross is God’s will.

⁴⁷ Later German Bibles drop Luther’s “noch” (“yet/still”).

⁴⁸ The underlying Greek verb here (Matthew 26:25) is not in a past tense.

⁴⁹ “Trinket alle daraus” denotes not “drink all the wine from this cup” but “drink the wine from this cup, all of you.”

⁵⁰ The word “new” turns out to have been added here at Matthew 26:28 in some early manuscripts of the gospel (likewise at Mark 14:24), and so many recent Bibles now read simply, “this is my blood of the covenant”; see Exodus 24:8, “Da nahm Moses das Blut, und sprengte das Volk damit, und sprach: Sehet, das ist das Blut des Bundes, den der HERR mit euch macht” (“Then Moses took the blood [of the sacrificial young bulls], and sprinkled the people with it, and said: ‘Look, this is the blood of the covenant that the LORD is making with you’”). Luther and others understood “diatheke” (along with “kainos”) as “new testament” and identified it (i.e., Jesus’s last will and testament) with what Luther called the “neuer Bund” (“new covenant”) in Jeremiah 31:31 (cf. Hebrews 8:8). The Hebrew word “berit” was given in the Septuagint (the ancient Jewish Greek translation of the Torah and, eventually, the entire Hebrew Bible, with some additional Greek texts) as “diatheke,” which in secular Greek referred to a particular type of agreement or covenant related to death, a testament, or will.

⁵¹ It is not wrong to translate “schwimmt” as “swims,” but here the word needs to be understood in the sense of “to passively float on the surface of a liquid,” not “to actively move in, or on, a liquid.”

⁵² On this “testament,” see the note on movement 11, above.

⁵³ In BWV 244.1, in an early scribal copy of the libretto, and in the poet’s reprinted libretto, this reads “in dich” (“into you”) but is given in the leading modern edition of BWV 244.1 as “in dir” (“in you”); in BWV 244.2, it reads “in dir” (“in you”).

⁵⁴ That is, the world just seems too small as a fitting metaphorical altar for the blood sacrifice of Jesus, who is God. (With regard to the altar of sacrifice, see 1 Kings 8:64 and 8:27.)

⁵⁵ “Ei” can simply be a synonym for “ach” (“ah”), but it could also used in place of “nun ja” (the interjection, “well”).

⁵⁶ That is, while to Jesus the world is too small to contain him, “to me” the love displayed in his sacrifice—in the sacrament of communion, the bread of his body and the wine of his blood (these tiny elements that do actually contain him in the Lutheran view)—is “too large,” greater than the cosmos itself.

⁵⁷ Matthew 26:30-32.

⁵⁸ Presumably from the “Hallel” sung at Passover (at this point, Psalms 115–18; Johann Olearius’s Bible Commentary, a book owned by Bach, here refers to the practice of singing these Psalms at Passover). Luther uses the word “Lobgesang” in Exodus 15:2, “Der HERR ist meine Stärke und mein Lobgesang” (“The LORD is my strength and my song of praise”), and in Isaiah 51:3, “man Wonne und Freude darin findet, Dank und Lobgesang” (“joy and gladness will be found in [Zion], thanksgiving and song of praise”). The Greek text in Matthew 26:30 gives a form of the verb “hymnnein” in which it is unclear whether one hymn is meant or more.

⁵⁹ At Passover, Jerusalem itself was always overcrowded with pilgrims. Where Jesus and the disciples (who were visiting from Galilee) went out to stay overnight was still within the area that, at the time, was considered ritually proper for pilgrims to be during the festival.

⁶⁰ Adapted from Zechariah 13:7, “Schlage den Hirten, so wird die Herde sich zerstreuen” (“If you strike the shepherd, then the flock will scatter”). See also Matthew 12:30, “Wer nicht mit mir ist, der ist wider mich; und wer nicht mit mir sammelt, der zerstreut” (“Whoever is not with me, he is against me; and whoever does not gather with me, he [is one who] scatters”); see Matthew 26:56 in movement 28, below, where the disciples flee when Jesus is seized by the bands of attendants of the Jewish authorities.

⁶¹ A stanza of “O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden.”

⁶² “Erkennen” is used here in its sense as a synonym for “anerkennen” (“avow”/“acknowledge [as one’s own]”).

⁶³ The sense of this talk of the mouth and of milk and sweetness is derived from the erotic language of Song of Songs 4:11, “Deine Lippen … sind wie triefender Honigseim: Honig und Milch ist unter deiner Zungen” (“Your lips … are like dripping honeycomb: honey and milk is under your tongue”). The Lutheran exegesis in the Calov Commentary Bible (owned by Bach) explains that “honey and milk is under your tougue” signifies how “deine Wort, so aus dem durch den Glauben gereinigten Herzen herquellen” (“your words [are ones] that spring forth from the heart purified by faith”). The hymn writer, however, here applied the language in the Song of Songs of the female beloved (understood in traditional Christian interpretation to be a foreshadowing of the church and of the individual Christian soul) over to Jesus (understood to have been foreshadowed by the male beloved in the Song of Songs).

⁶⁴ Matthew 26:33-35.

⁶⁵ A stanza of “O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden.”

⁶⁶ The sense of this line is derived from Philippians 1:21, “Christus ist mein Leben” (“Christ is my life”).

⁶⁷ The verb “mögen” is here employed in its older-German sense, where modern German would use “vermögen” (“to be able to”).

⁶⁸ Drawing on the sentiment of Galatians 2:19, “Ich bin mit Christo gekreuzigt” (“I am crucified with Christ”).

⁶⁹ The Luther Bibles of Bach’s day, including the Calov Bible Commentary (which Bach owned), read not, as with BWV 244.2, “bis dass ich dort hingehe und bete” (“until I may go forth and may pray there”) but “bis dass ich dorthin gehe und bete” (“until I may go there and may pray,” or “until I may go and pray there”); “dorthin” is a synonym for dort” (“there”). BWV 244.1, the Olearius Bible Commentary (which Bach owned), and the early Luther Bibles read, somewhat ambiguously, “bis dass ich dort hin gehe, und bete” (“until I may go over there, and may pray”). The standard modern edition of BWV 244.1 gives the reading of BWV 244.2 here.

⁷⁰ Matthew 26:34-38.

⁷¹ Luther’s “Hofe” does not mean “garden.” In the Greek text of the Gospel of John, the only canonical gospel where the idea of Jesus being in a garden is mentioned (for special theological reasons peculiar to John among the four gospels—note that the garden is not identified as “Gethsemane”), Luther does use “Garten” (“garden”). The Olearius Bible, which Bach owned, and other sources explain Luther’s “Hofe” in Matthew in the sense of a “villa.” The underlying word in Matthew is “chorion,” which Luther never translates as “garden”; he renders it with “Dorflein” (“village”) in John 4:5, “Ort” (“place”) in Acts 28:7, and “Acker” (“field”) in Acts 1:18-19, 4:34, and 5:3,8. The “garden” of the passion narrative in John is “kepos” in Greek, a word that appears only five times in the New Testament (Luke 13:19; John 18:1,26; 19:41—each time given as “Garten” by Luther, who also renders no other words than “kepos” as “Garten”). Luther consistently uses “Hofe” to mean a court or courtyard, but not a garden (hence, e.g., his expression “im Hofe des Gartens” [“in the court of the garden”] in Esther 1:5).

⁷² The two sons of Zebedee are James and John (as narrated in Matthew 4:21 and Mark 1:19). They are presumably unnamed here because the narrative will place its emphasis on Peter.

⁷³ A stanza of “Herzliebster Jesu, was hast du verbrochen?”

⁷⁴ “Hinsenken” is an older German synonym for “niedersinken” (“to sink downwards, to the ground]”).

⁷⁵ Whereas modern German assiduously follows the logical rule that two negatives cancel each other out, the construction “da ist kein Helfer nicht” (literally, “there is no helper not,” i.e., “there is not no helper”) employed here reflects an older German grammar where “pleonastic negatives” could be employed to intensify the negation rather than nullify it.

⁷⁶ In Genesis 3:5, before “the Fall,” humankind is tempted by a serpent to become like God—to have the knowledge of good and evil. Philippians 2:6-7 reads, “ob er wohl in Göttlicher Gestalt war, hielt ers nicht für einen Raub, Gott gleich sein; sondern äusserte sich selbst, und nahm Knechtsgestalt an, ward gleich wie ein ander Mensch” (“though he [Jesus] was without doubt in the form of God, he held it not robbery to be equal with God; rather, [he] relinquished his own advantage, and took on the form of a servant, becoming [in this sense] like any other human being”); note that Luther has added the word “wohl” (here, “without doubt”) to the original biblical text. What Bach’s movement 19 is saying, then, is that for Jesus “to pay for others’ robbery” is to pay for fallen humanity’s cardinal robbery—in desiring to become like God, humanity “steals” God’s honor.

⁷⁷ Only at m. 14, Bach’s own score of BWV 244.2 reads not “Sünden” (“sins”) but “Sorgen” (“worries”/“cares”); the instances in his original performing parts either read “Sünden” or were revised from “Sorgen” to “Sünden.”

⁷⁸ In BWV 244.1 and in an early scribal copy of the libretto, this reads “mir” (“to me”); in BWV 244.2 and in the poet’s reprinted libretto, it reads “uns” (“to us”).

⁷⁹ In Lutheran teaching, Jesus’s sacrificial death on the cross is a righteous act, and his righteousness is imputed/gifted to Christian believers, who are otherwise unrighteous (i.e., Jesus’s righteousness is accrued to the believer, as an undeserved gift).

⁸⁰ Matthew 26:39.

⁸¹ In biblical language, “the cup” is a metaphor for what God has to offer a person, whether positive (e.g., “the cup of consolation”) or negative (e.g., “the cup of wrath,” and “the cup of suffering”).

⁸² In BWV 244.1 and in an early scribal copy of the libretto, this reads “in welchem” (“in which”), but it is given in the leading modern edition of BWV 244.1 as “in welchen” (“into which”); in BWV 244.2 and in the poet’s reprinted libretto, it reads “in welchen.”

⁸³ A similar sentiment is expressed in this same librettist’s poetry for movement 4 in Bach’s church cantata “Sehet! Wir gehn hinauf gen Jerusalem” BWV 159: “Es ist vollbracht, / Das Leid ist alle, / Wir sind von unserm Sündenfalle / In Gott gerecht gemacht” (“It is accomplished; / The suffering [of Jesus on the cross] is over; / In God we are [by faith] justified [for salvation] / From our fall into sin [through Adam]”).

⁸⁴ “Es dem lieben Gott gefällt,” here, is meant in the sense of “this is our dear God’s will”—this is analogous to the expression still used, e.g., in a convention of German death announcements, “Es hat Gott dem Herrn gefallen, … in die Ewigkeit abzurufen” (literal: “It has pleased the Lord God to call [name of person] into eternity”; sense: “It is God’s will that [name of person] has now passed away”). The same sentiment lies behind Luther’s rendering of 1 Samuel 3:18, “Er aber sprach: Es ist der HERR; er tue, was ihm wohlgefällt” (literally, “But he [Eli] declared [to Samuel]: ‘It is the Lord; may he do what well pleases him’”).

⁸⁵ The librettist’s language “sein Mund, der mit Milch und Honig fliesset” (“his mouth, which flows with milk and honey”) is similar to the frequent biblical expression “Land, darin Milch und Honig fliesst” (“land [biblically promised by God to the ancient Israelites, leaving behind slavery in Egypt] in which milk and honey flows”). Otherwise, this movement draws principally on the same imagery that is found in the hymn stanza of movement 15, above. The sense of movement 15’s and 23’s talk of the mouth and of milk and honey is derived from the erotic language of Song of Songs 4:11, “Deine Lippen … sind wie triefender Honigseim: Honig und Milch ist unter deiner Zungen” (“Your lips … are like dripping honeycomb: honey and milk is under your tongue”). The Lutheran exegesis in the Calov Commentary Bible (owned by Bach) explains this “honey and milk is under your tougue” as meaning “deine Wort, so aus dem durch den Glauben gereinigten Herzen herquellen” (“your words that spring forth from the heart purified by faith”). The librettist here in movement 23 applied the language in the Song of Songs of the female beloved (understood in traditional Christian interpretation to be a foreshadowing of the church and of the individual Christian soul) instead over to Jesus (understood to have been foreshadowed by the male beloved in the Song of Songs).

⁸⁶ The German word “Grund” (singular) here has a double meaning, and we have rendered it as “grounds” (plural) to effect this same double meaning: compare, e.g., the expressions “coffee grounds” and “grounds for divorce.” Printed sermons in Bach’s library speak of “die Hefe und Grundsuppe” (“the dregs and slimy surface”): the “grounds” of the sin-dregged “cup of death’s bitterness” are sweetened when the mouth of Jesus takes a first sip. In a second sense of the word “Grund,” one reaches the cause of something by “getting to the bottom of it,” and one cannot go any lower than the “ground.” The grounds for God’s anger are the “repulsively stinking sins” that have been poured into the “cup” that Jesus is willing to drink.

⁸⁷ In BWV 244.1, this reads, as in the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day, “zu Petro” (“to Peter”); in BWV 244.2, it reads, conforming to the wording of Luke 22:46 in the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day, “zu ihnen” (“to them,” i.e., the disciples). Note that in any event the subsequent “were you not able” is plural (in German “könnet ihr nicht,” not the singular “könnest du nicht”) and thus refers not to Peter but to the disciples.

⁸⁸ Matthew 26:40-42.

⁸⁹ “Anfechtung” (“vexation,” “temptation,” “affliction,” and/or “tribulation”) was, and still is, the Lutheran term for a variety of tribulations surrounding doubts and terrors about one’s moral and spiritual stature before God.

⁹⁰ The first stanza of this hymn.

⁹¹ The sense of this line is derived from Psalm 25:8, “Der HERR ist gut und fromm” (“The LORD is good and upright”); see also Deuteronomy 32:4.

⁹² The language of this line is derived from Jeremiah 10:24, “Züchtige mich, HERR, doch mit Masse und nicht in deinem Grimm, auf dass du mich nicht aufreibest” (“Chastise me, LORD, but with measure and not in your wrath, lest you stamp me out”).

⁹³ Matthew 26:43-50.

⁹⁴ Here the word “aber” is used in its older German sense as a synonym for “wieder” (“again”) or “abermal”/“abermals” (“once more”).

⁹⁵ With regard to the “Son of Man,” see the note at the end of movement 2, above.

⁹⁶ This is not an “illegal” vigilante crazed “mob,” as is often said in modern commentary, but a large group of authorized attendants of the Jewish authorities with police duties.

⁹⁷ The transmitted Greek wording of this verse, Matthew 26:50, presents great difficulties. It reads hyperliterally, “Friend for which you are here.” Luther and many other translators understand the formula as a question, “Friend[,] for which [purpose is it that] you are here[?]” Many other Bibles, however, take the utterance to be a statement, “Friend[, do that] for which you are here[.]” The terrifying commentary in movement 27, below, works most effectively following from Luther’s rendering.

⁹⁸ In BWV 244.1, this reads “von” (“from”), which may well be a copying mistake: in an early scribal copy of the libretto, the poet’s reprinted libretto, and BWV 244.2, it reads “vor” (here, “in”).

⁹⁹ In BWV 244.1, this reads “Abgrund der Hölle” (“abyss of hell”), but is given in the leading modern edition of BWV 244.1 as “Abgrund, o Hölle” (“abyss, O hell”); in BWV 244.2, the poet’s reprinted libretto, and an early scribal copy of the libretto, it reads “Abgrund[,] o Hölle.”

¹⁰⁰ That is, anticipating death, as in Ecclesiastes 12:2-7, “Licht, Mond … finster werden … denn der Staub muss wieder zu der Erde kommen, wie er gewesen ist, und der Geist wieder zu Gott, der ihn gegeben hat (“light [and] moon grow dark … then the dust must return to the earth, as it [the dust once] was, and the spirit return to God who gave [you] it [the spirit]”).

¹⁰¹ In the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day “falsch” is often an archaic synonym for “lasterhaft” (“depraved”), “false” in the sense of being unrighteous or hypocritical, contrary to God’s laws.

¹⁰² Some translations of the libretto render this line as asking hell to break to pieces “the false ‘betrayers’, that murderous ‘race’.” But the poet’s “den Verräter” is masculine accusative singular, referring to Jesus’s disciple Judas Iscariot, and the next phrase applies to him as well. “Blut,” then, here refers not to a “race” (i.e., “the Jews”) but to the character in the biblical narrative, Judas. (Compare such expressions in English as “young blood.”) Note, too, that Jesus is the “innocent blood,” in movement 41.

¹⁰³ Matthew 26:51-56.

¹⁰⁴ The full reading of this verse, Matthew 26:51, in the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day was “Und siehe, einer aus denen, die mit Jesu waren, reckete die Hand aus, und zog sein Schwert aus: und schlug des Hohenpriesters Knecht und hieb ihm ein Ohr ab (“And look: one of those who were with Jesus, stretched out his hand and drew his sword, and struck the high priest’s servant, and lopped off an ear of his”). Many biblical commentators have been disturbed by the thought of “those with Jesus” carrying a sword. Only the Gospel of Luke, at 22:36, tries to make narrative sense of the idea. In Matthew 10:34, Jesus says “I have not come to bring peace but a sword”; biblical commentators have long debated whether this was meant literally or figuratively.

¹⁰⁵ Earlier, in movement 14 (Matthew 26:3), Jesus quoted from Zechariah 13:7. The passion narrative will come to a climax in movement 61 (Matthew 27:46) with Jesus citing Psalm 22:2.

¹⁰⁶ A stanza of “Meinem Jesum lass ich nicht.” Only the first line of text actually appears in the sources for BWV 244.1, and the editorial wording provided in the standard modern edition of this version is given here.

¹⁰⁷ This is an allusion to Genesis 32:26, the story of Jacob’s wrestling with God at Peniel. God says to Jacob, “Lass mich gehen” (“Let me go”), and Jacob answers, “Ich lasse dich nicht [gehen], du segnest mich denn” (“I will not let you [go], unless you bless me”). According to Luther’s radically Christocentric reading of the Hebrew Bible, it was actually Christ himself whom Jacob wrestled with at Peniel.

¹⁰⁸ “Brook” is indeed singular—“zu ‘dem’ Lebensbächlein” (“to the brook of life”)—in most of the contemporary hymnbooks, but the word is plural—“zu ‘den’ Lebensbächlein” (“to the brooks of life”)—in some of them and in several Bach cantatas, presumably to strengthen an allusion to Revelation 7:17, “das Lamm … wird sie leiten zu den lebendigen Wasserbrunnen” (“[Jesus] the Lamb [of God] … shall lead them [every Christian believer, in Lutheran interpretation,] to fountains of living water”).

¹⁰⁹ The various sources for BWV 244.1 and 244.2, and the various Luther Bibles and quotations from them, more or less evenly distributed, give either the adjective—i.e., with lowercase “s”—“schönste” (“most beautiful”) or the adjectival noun—with uppercase “s”—“Schönste” (“Most-Beautiful”).

¹¹⁰ For movement 30, the words of “the Believers” are those of Song of Songs 5:17 (verbatim, as rendered in the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day).

¹¹¹ This word is not given in an early scribal copy of the libretto or in the poet’s reprinted libretto.

¹¹² Tigers were considered to be thirsty for lamb’s blood. Here the “tiger-claws” apparently refers to the authorities in Matthew 26:47 and 26:55, not to the Jewish people as a whole.

¹¹³ The “soul” here does not belong to someone else than the “I” who is the subject of the poetry. This “soul,” then, is the “my soul” of the female beloved—taken to foreshadow “the church” (here, as “Daughter Zion”)—in Song of Songs 5:6, who in the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day declares: “da ging meine Seele heraus nach seinem Wort; ich suchte ihn, aber ich fand ihn nicht” (“then my soul went out [i.e., then I fell into a swoon] in accordance with [i.e., because of] his [i.e., my beloved’s] word; I sought him, but I did not find him”); the male beloved of the Song of Songs was taken to foreshadow Jesus, the end-time bridegroom of the church and of the individual Christian soul.

¹¹⁴ Matthew 26:57-60a.

¹¹⁵ It is not entirely clear to whom the underlying Greek text here refers. It could be to “[policing] attendants” or to “servants.” Some English renderings of the St. Matthew Passion libretto here give “officers,” but Luther’s “Knechte” means “servants.”

¹¹⁶ “Wo” is apparently being used here as a synonym for “worauf” (“whereon,” “what”). Later German Bibles here read “um zu sehen, worauf es hinauswollte” (“in order to see what this [capturing of Jesus] was driving at”).

¹¹⁷ A stanza of “In dich hab ich gehoffet, Herr.”

¹¹⁸ “Richten” was older German for “Recht machen” (“to dispense justice”).

¹¹⁹ In older German, “Gedicht” had a variety of meanings, including as a synonym for “Erfindung” (“fabrication”); “Geschicht oder Gedicht?” was an equivalent of the English expression “fact or fiction?”

¹²⁰ Matthew 26:60b-63a.

¹²¹ Here in Matthew 26:60, Luther’s rendering—close but not identical to that of the King James Bible—features extra words not contained in the Greek sources generally used by more recent biblical translators. Luther’s text reads as follows with the additional bit in italics: “Und wiewohl viel falsche Zeugen herzutraten, funden sie doch keins. Zuletzt traten herzu zween falsche Zeugen” (“and even though many false testifiers stepped forward, still they found none; at last, two false testifiers stepped forward”). Following the shorter version in Matthew, which simply says “at last two [men] came forward,” this latter part of this verse should perhaps be understood, however, as: “At last, two [testifiers with accurate, damaging testimony] stepped forward and said: . . .” The narrative details at this point and their logic are difficult to sort out, to say the least, and consulting the other gospels makes matters no easier. In any event, for Luther and his followers (and perhaps also for the author of the extra material in Matthew 26:60), the final “false testimony” could be taken to mean accurate testimony that was falsely understood (i.e., accepted literally rather than spiritually); so argues, more or less, e.g., the Olearius Bible Commentary, which Bach owned.

¹²² In BWV 244.1 and 244.2, this line reads as above, “Um uns damit zu zeigen” (“In order thereby to show us”); in an early scribal copy of the libretto and in the poet’s reprinted libretto, it reads “Um damit anzuzeigen” (“In order thereby to announce/show”).

¹²³ “Ei” can simply be a synonym for “ach” (“ah”), but it could also used in place of “nun ja” (the interjection “well”).

¹²⁴ Matthew 26:63b-68.

¹²⁵ With regard to the “Son of Man,” see the note at the end of movement 2, above.

¹²⁶ Alluding to a combination of Daniel 7:13-14 and possibly Psalm 110:1; the Olearius Bible Commentary, which Bach owned, lists both passages.

¹²⁷ Luther has added the word “God” in this sentence. Blaspheming God was a capital offense according to a prevailing understanding of the somewhat ambiguous Hebrew text in Leviticus 24:16. What precisely would count as an example of blasphemy has sometimes been controversial. In ancient Israel the expression “son of God” was used variously to mean “nation of Israel,” “enthroned monarch,” “child of God,” “angels,” or “righteous individual.” For followers of Jesus the expression “Son/son of God” came to be identified with “preexistence Christology” (i.e., the belief that Jesus is God incarnate). From the standpoint of the chief priests, scripture scholars, and elders, claiming Jesus as God would without question be blasphemy.

¹²⁸ In older German, “dürfen” could be used as a synonym for “[etwas] bedürfen” (“to need [something]”).

¹²⁹ Luther has added the words “of God” in this sentence. With regard to blasphemy of God, see the note on the immediately preceding sentence in this movement.

¹³⁰ It is obsolete (and needlessly confusing) English to render “schuldig des Todes” as “guilty of death.” The archaic expression “he is guilty of death” means not “he is to blame for death” but “he is deserving of death” or “he is legally subject to being put to death.”

¹³¹ Echoing Jeremiah 26:11, “Und die Priester … sprachen … Dieser ist des Todes schuldig” (“And the priests … declared … ‘this man is deserving of death’”). It is the Romans, however, who will put Jesus to death. Lutherans of Bach’s day would readily have called to mind John 18:31, where “die Juden” (“the Jews”) declare to Pilate, “Wir dürfen niemand töten” (“We are not permitted to put anyone to death”). Though this verse has sometimes sparked controversy in modern commentary, there does not appear to be any reason to question that Jews would indeed have been prohibited from putting Jesus to death for the charges against him that are depicted in the Gospel of John. There were other charges, however, for which the Jewish leaders evidently were permitted to carry out death sentences, but by stoning, not crucifixion: e.g., for violating prohibitions against circulating in certain quarters of the Jerusalem Temple, and possibly for adultery.

¹³² A stanza of “O Welt, sieh hier dein Leben.”

¹³³ The most general sense of the word “Plage” in older German was given in the leading eighteenth-century German dictionary as “Ein Schlag, ein Streich, … und figürlich auch die dadurch verursachte Wunde” (“A blow, a stroke, … and figuratively also the wound caused by it”). In older English the word “plague” could likewise mean “a blow, a smiting.” Psalm 89:33, in the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day, reads “So will ich ihre Sünde mit der Rute heimsuchen und ihre Missetat mit Plagen” (“Then will I visit their sin with the rod, and their misdeed with strokes/wounds”). The last word of the sentence renders the plural of the Hebrew “nega,” which means variously “stroke,” “plague,” “wound,” “mark,” “plague-spot,” “wound-mark.”

¹³⁴ Literally, “Of misdeeds know you not.” This line is not saying that Jesus was unaware of the existence of misdeeds or sin. The sense of the line derives from 2 Corinthians 5:21, “er hat den, der von keiner Sünde wusste, für uns zur Sünde gemacht” (“he [God] has made into sin for us him [Jesus] who knew of no sin [i.e., who had no personal experience of committing a sin]”). See also line 3 in movement 49, below.

¹³⁵ Matthew 26:69-75.

¹³⁶ This was traditionally taken to mean that Peter betrayed himself as a non-Judean, in that he spoke in the Galilean dialect of Aramaic, with its distinctive accent.

¹³⁷ In modern German, “um [jemandens / einer Sache] willen” is used as a synonym for “zuliebe” (“for the sake of [someone / something]”). In older German though, as here, this construction was also used as a synonym for “wegen” (“on account of” or “because of”), even though this usage was frowned upon by strict grammarians in the eighteenth century.

¹³⁸ A stanza of “Werde munter, mein Gemüte.”

¹³⁹ This line draws on Daniel 9:5, “wir sind von deinen Geboten und Rechten gewichen” (“[LORD,] we have turned aside from your commandments and laws”).

¹⁴⁰ “Hat uns doch dein Sohn verglichen” does not mean “even so your Son set the example for us” or “your Son indeed has likened himself to us.” Here, “vergleichen” (past tense, “verglichen”) is an archaic synonym for “ausgleichen” in its sense of “to balance” or “to reconcile” (e.g., a ledger, used as a metaphor for a record of sins as debts). See also movement 46, below: “Die Schuld bezahlt der Herre, der Gerechte, für seine Knechte” (“the Lord, the righteous one, pays the debt for his servants”).

¹⁴¹ “Todespein” (literally, “death’s pain”)—usually expressed in the plural as “Todesschmerzen” (“pangs/pains of death”)—here is understood to be a type of evil “force.” Luther argued that Jesus’s sacrificial, atoning death on the cross was a victorious passing in which Jesus, as true God and human being, had experienced fully the pains of the evil cosmic power of Death itself (that is, as opposed to Jesus’s simply having experienced such great physical agonies that he died from them). This view was expressed in Luther’s commentary on Acts 2:24, which says of Jesus, as rendered in the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day, “Den hat Gott auferwecket, und aufgelöset die Schmerzen des Todes” (“God [the father] has raised him [God the son] up [from the dead], having loosed the pains of death”).

¹⁴² In BWV 244.1, this reads “alle Hohenpriester”; in BWV 244.2, it reads “alle Hohepriester.” Both translate as “all the chief priests.” In modern German, the plural of “der Hohepriester” (“the high priest”) is “die Hohepriester” (“the chief priests”), but in the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day, and otherwise, the plural was, ordinarily, “die Hohenpriester.”

¹⁴³ Matthew 27:1-6.

¹⁴⁴ The Gospel of Matthew does not give any explicit indication that this is more than a hearing or interrogation. (The idea of a truly formal session of the Sanhedrin in which a capital case was decided at dawn on a feast day that began the previous sundown with the Passover seder remains controversial.)

¹⁴⁵ Possibly echoing 2 Samuel 17:23.

¹⁴⁶ The “[morally] lost son” is Judas. This line draws on the quasi-technical biblical term “huios tes apoleias” (“son of perdition”; or, also possibly, “son of lostness”) that is famously applied to Judas in John 17:12, which in the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day reads “Die du mir gegeben hast, die habe ich bewahrt, und ist keiner von ihnen verloren, ohne das verlorne Kind” (“Those [followers that] you [God] have given me [Jesus], they have I safeguarded, and none of them is lost, except the [morally] lost child [Judas]”). The librettist has adjusted Luther’s “das verlorne Kind” to “der verlorne Sohn” (“the lost son”) because of the need for a rhyme with the word “Mörderlohn” (“murderer’s wage). Modern Luther Bibles read in John 17:12 not the “verlor[e]ne Kind” but instead the “Sohn des Verderbens” (“son of doom/destruction/perdition/corruption/ruin/loss”). Another biblical “lost” (Greek, “apololos”) son is narrated in the parable, in Luke 15:11-31, about what in English is often called “the ‘prodigal’ son” (i.e., where the “apololos” is taken to mean “prodigal/wasteful”), a story that Luther, however, called “Das Gleichnis vom verlorenen Sohn” (“The Parable of the ‘Lost’ Son”). Lutheranism emphasized God’s grace in this son’s having been “lost” and then “found,” as opposed to Judas, who remained “lost” and met a violent death, according to Matthew 27:5 and Acts 1:18 (note that John 13:27 says that at Jesus’s last supper with his disciples “fuhr der Satan in ihn” [“Satan entered into him (Judas)], and thus Judas could be considered a [metaphorical] child of “Apollyon” [“the Destroyer”], a name linguistically related to “apoleias” [“lostness/perdition”]) and which is applied to Satan in Revelation 9:11).

¹⁴⁷ Judas was frequently called a murderer in Lutheran discourse.

¹⁴⁸ Matthew 27:7-14.

¹⁴⁹ See possibly Jeremiah 18:2-6, 19:1-11; 32:6-15, but the citation is actually adapted from Zecharaiah 11:12-13. Luther considered the attribution to Jeremiah in Matthew to be a simple error and of no consequence.

¹⁵⁰ An adaptation of Zechariah 11:12-13.

¹⁵¹ The Greek text in Matthew reads literally, “And he did not answer him to nothing one word.” Some manuscripts do not contain the phrase, “to nothing.” Our direct rendering of Luther’s German for this phrase corresponds to the reading of the Geneva Bible of 1560 (which was Shakespeare’s Bible).

¹⁵² The first stanza of this hymn.

¹⁵³ Quoting Psalm 37:5, “Befiehl dem HERRN deine Wege” (“Entrust/commend your ways to the LORD”). The verb “befehlen” is employed biblically in one of its older German senses, as a synonym for “empfehlen” in the sense of “to entrust” or “to commend.” The word is also used this way, e.g., in Jeremiah 11:20, “HERR …, ich habe dir meine Sache befohlen” (“LORD, … I have commended/entrusted my cause to you”).

¹⁵⁴ The language of this line draws on Proverbs 12:25, “Sorge im Herzen kränkt, aber ein freundliches Wort erfreut” (“concern in one’s heart causes grief; but a friendly word gladdens”).

¹⁵⁵ The insertion of this hymn stanza effects a contrast between Pilate the “Landpfleger” (“governor”; literally, “caretaker of the land”) and God the “[Himmels]pfleger” (“governor/caretaker [of heaven and of the heavens]”), something that cannot be smoothly captured in English translation.

¹⁵⁶ “Barrabam” is the accusative (objective) inflection in Latin of the name “Barrabas.”

¹⁵⁷ Matthew 27:15-22.

¹⁵⁸ The idea of such a custom is often debated by historians. There were instances of pardons but the extrabiblical evidence for a custom in Judea of releasing a prisoner at Passover or at other feasts is by itself not decisive.

¹⁵⁹ The Greek text in Matthew 27:16 reads, “they [‘the crowd’ (‘ochlos’)] had a prisoner,” but the pronoun in Luther’s version makes better sense: “he [Pilate] had a prisoner.”

¹⁶⁰ The parallel passage in most early manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark (15:10) reads here, “the chief priests had handed him over,” and not as in Matthew 27:18, “they” [‘das Volk,’ ‘the (Jewish) people,’ which is the closest antecedent in Luther’s rendering of Matthew 27:15. Even in Matthew, as is the case in Mark, the priests might be understood as the agents, from the more distant antecedents of Matthew 27:1-2,12.

¹⁶¹ Presumably Luther’s biblical text should be understood to mean that Pilate’s wife sent word via an adult male messenger. Bach could either have had the tenor evangelist simply report the verbal content of her message, or had another tenor or a bass do the job of messenger, but he set the text instead in the upper octave, for soprano, as a cutaway flashback.

¹⁶² A stanza of “Herzliebster Jesu, was hast du verbrochen.”

¹⁶³ Matthew 27:23a.

¹⁶⁴ The standard biblical and elsewhere widely used wording was not “Teufel forttreiben” (“to drive demons away”) but “Teufel austreiben” (“to drive demons out”). The librettist uses “trieb fort” (“drove away”) in place of “trieb aus” (“drove out”) simply to accommodate a rhyme with God the father’s “Wort” (“word”).

¹⁶⁵ The sense of this line is probably derived from Psalm 147:6, “Der HERR richtet auf die Elenden” (“The LORD lifts up the abject”).

¹⁶⁶ Literally, “Of one sin knows he nothing.” This line is not saying that Jesus was unaware of the existence of misdeeds or sin. The sense of the line derives from 2 Corinthians 5:21, “er hat den, der von keiner Sünde wusste, für uns zur Sünde gemacht” (“he [God] has made into sin for us him [Jesus] who knew of no sin [i.e., who had no personal experience of committing a sin]”). 1 Peter 2:21-22 declares that Jesus was someone “welcher keine Sünde getan hat” (“who had done/committed no sin”). The belief reflected in this movement is not only that out of love Jesus is willing to die for humankind, but also that because of his sinlessness, he was indeed qualified to be the unblemished, spotless sacrifice necessary to pay the debt of human sin. See also the last line in movement 37, above.

¹⁶⁷ Matthew 27:23b-26.

¹⁶⁸ The idea of “hand washing” as an expression of absolving oneself of responsibility is not a well-attested Roman custom (and this narrative detail is not found in the Gospels of Mark, Luke, or John), but it is biblical: perhaps Matthew here primarily reflects Hebrew scriptural passages like Deuteronomy 21:6-7, Psalm 26:6, and Psalm 73:13.

¹⁶⁹ The Greek in Matthew 27:25 reads hyperliterally, “His blood on us and our children” (there is no verb in Matthew’s formula, and this narrative detail is not found in the Gospels of Mark, Luke, or John). Luther gives the verse as “May his blood ‘come over’ us and our children,” a rendering that is less obviously a curse than the one typically found in English Bibles: “His blood ‘be on’ us and ‘on’ our children” (and which rendering is wrongly given in many modern translations of the libretto from Bach’s St. Matthew Passion). Some Lutheran theologians of Bach’s day and earlier read Matthew 27:25 as saying that the Jews were, wittingly or unwittingly, calling on themselves a blessing of God’s redemption through the blood of Christ. See also the footnote regarding the line “the wounds [of Jesus] copiously/generously bleed” in movement 52, below.

¹⁷⁰ “Erbarm es Gott” is not a quasi-liturgical plea for God’s forgiveness (“Lord, have mercy”) but an idiomatic cry of horror or dismay. In the south of Germany still today people say “Gott erbarm!”, much in the way that dismayed Americans would exclaim “Good Lord!” or “Mercy’s sakes!” or “For the love of God!”

¹⁷¹ The sense of this line appears to be “Take my yielding heart in place of the hard, unyielding heart of those scourging Jesus in the hall of judgment.”

¹⁷² The word “milde” is here regularly mistranslated as “gently” (i.e., “lightly”). For the word’s less well-known sense, which is much more likely the operative one in the present context, consider for example the wording of Psalm 37:21, “Der Gottlose borgt und bezahlt nicht; der Gerechte aber ist barmherzig und milde” (“The Godless one borrows and [re]pays not; the righteous one, however, is merciful and generous”). In the libretto of Bach’s cantata “Brich dem Hungrigen dein Brot” BWV 39, movement 2 declares “dass er der Armut auch die Notdurft ausgespendet, / Als er mit milder Hand, / Was jener nötig ist, uns reichlich zugewendet” (“that he [God] also provides for poverty’s dire need, / As with his bounteous/generous hand [i.e., not ‘with his “gentle” hand’] / He bountifully bestows on us what each requires”).

¹⁷³ In ancient mythology the “Opferschale” is a basin in which the blood of the sacrificial animal is collected. Consider, too, the offerings for the altar in the Dedication of the Tabernacle in Numbers 7, where twelve times a silver basin (Luther: “Schale”) is presented for use in grain offering (Luther: “Speisopfer”).

¹⁷⁴ Matthew 27:27-30.

¹⁷⁵ “Purple” would signify royal or imperial attire. In Matthew the color is actually “scarlet,” which would in the gospel’s day most immediately call to mind not royalty but the cloak of the Roman general (the more distant possibility would be the emperor’s specifically military cloak). Mark 15:17 and John 19:2 read “purple.” Luther’s “purple” for the Gospel of Matthew’s “cloak” (27:28), however, precludes the richer variety of symbolism; i.e., while in Matthew Jesus is decidedly military (and possibly aristocratic), in Luther’s rendering he would be decidedly aristocratic (but not military).

¹⁷⁶ The expression here in Matthew 27:29 plays on the traditional greeting to the emperor, “Ave, Caesar!” The “greetings-to-you” parallels Judas’s greeting to Jesus earlier on in the story (26:49, set in movement 26). Following upon these two villainous ironic uses in the biblical narrative, the commentary hymn at movement 54 will nicely furnish a virtuous straightforward one, “my [i.e., the implied singer’s] greetings to you.”

¹⁷⁷ In BWV 244.2, the first two stanzas of this hymn are included; in BWV 244.1, however, apparently only the first stanza was included.

¹⁷⁸ In movements 10 and 27, the word “gebunden” is employed in the sense of “bound” (i.e., referring to tying Jesus’s hands together by rope behind his back) but here in the sense of “braided.”

¹⁷⁹ “Zwungen” is the older-German past tense of “zwingen” (“to compel/coerce”); later German Bibles here read “zwangen.”

¹⁸⁰ Matthew 27:31-32.

¹⁸¹ In the Gospel of John (19:17), and in movement 1 of the present libretto (see the penultimate line of that movement), Jesus carries the cross himself (i.e., apparently unaided the whole time). In Matthew, it seems the Roman soldiers were afraid that Jesus, weakened from having been flogged, might die before they could crucify him as a public warning example to the Passover pilgrims.

¹⁸² In denoting whose cross it was, Luther employed the “dative of interest” + “possessive determiner” (“[anstelle von] ihm” + “sein” [“(instead of / for) him” + “his”]), thereby emphasizing that the burden belonged to Jesus while Simon of Cyrene was forced to bear it. The Greek source texts of the New Testament (including the Erasmus 1519 edition that Luther worked from) do not contain the wording “for him.”

¹⁸³ This line reads with this wording in the surviving musical sources of BWV 244.1 and 244.2. In an early scribal copy of the libretto and in the poet’s reprinted libretto, it reads “Je herber geht es dennoch ein” (“The more gallingly [to us], nonetheless, it enters [the soul]”).

¹⁸⁴ The expression “flesh and blood” here refers to (inherently sinful) human nature. This sense is derived from 1 Corinthians 15:50, which in the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day reads “Davon sage ich aber, lieben Brüder, dass Fleisch und Blut nicht können das Reich Gottes ererben” (“Hence I [the apostle Paul] say, however, to you dear brothers [in Christ], that flesh and blood [which, according to Luther, is essentially corrupted human nature, the ‘Old Adam in us’] cannot inherit the kingdom of God”). It is the “spirit” that inherits the kingdom of God.

¹⁸⁵ Lines 1–2 do not mean “Yes, willingly/gladly are flesh and blood compelled to the cross” (and note that this would pointlessly contradict the sentiment of lines 3–4). The sense of “Ja freilich will in uns das Fleisch und Blut zum Kreuz gezwungen sein” is indeed the opposite: “Yes, unwillingly are flesh and blood compelled to the cross.” The verb “wollen” appears here in its the passive use, “etwas will etwas sein” (“something has to be [or, ‘needs to be’] something”), as, e.g., in the expression “auch Strippen will gelernt sein” (“even stripteasing has to be learned,” or “even stripteasing requires skill”). Compare the English expression “boys will be boys” (i.e., “boys have/need to be boys”). Note, too, that the poet apparently based his libretto in part on passion sermons of the seventeenth-century theologian Heinrich Müller (which are known to have been in Bach’s personal library); Müller writes, e.g., “Fleisch und Blut will nicht gern ans Kreuz; ach, wie träg ist Fleisch und Blut, wanns ans Kreuz soll” (“flesh-and-blood does not want [to go] gladly to the cross; ah, how lethargic is flesh-and-blood, when it is [to go] to the cross”).

¹⁸⁶ The antecedent for this “es” is apparently “[das] Kreuz” (“cross”), the word that here is emphasized in Bach’s musical setting.

¹⁸⁷ The older-German verb “guten” is used here in its sense as a synonym for “wohltun” (“to do good [to]”).

¹⁸⁸ In an early scribal copy of the libretto, in the poet’s reprinted libretto, and in mm. 32–34 of BWV 244.1, this line reads “So hilfst du mir es wieder tragen” (“Then you will help me bear it again”)—in mm. 29–32, however, BWV 244.1 gives “So hilfst du mir es selber tragen” (“Then you yourself will help me bear it”); throughout in BWV 244.2 it reads “So hilfst du mir es selber tragen.”

¹⁸⁹ It is not easy to parse the logic of movements 56 and 57.

¹⁹⁰ Matthew 27:33-44.

¹⁹¹ Grammatically, the word “Schädel” in “Schädelstätt” (or “Schädelstätte”) could be singular (“der Schädel” [“the skull”]) or plural (“die Schädel” [“the skulls”]), but definitions of the word in German historical dictionaries explain this as a place where skulls from abandoned graves were found, as opposed to other sources which describe Golgotha as a hill that was shaped like a skull.

¹⁹² Echoing Psalm 69:22.

¹⁹³ The “it” as neuter “es” in “und da ers [i.e., ‘er es’] schmeckete” (“and when he tasted it”), as opposed to an “it” as masculine “ihn” (for “der Essig” [“the vinegar”]) or feminine “sie” (for “die Galle” [“the gall”]) refers to the implied grammatical neuter of the combination of the vinegar and gall.

¹⁹⁴ Psalm 22:19. Note that “durch den Propheten” is accusative masculine singular, “by the prophet” (the plural, “through the prophets,” would have required “durch die Propheten”).

¹⁹⁵ “Zu seinen Häupten” is a later orthography for Luther’s original but now archaic plural-for-singular rendering in Matthew 27:37, “zu seinen Heubten” (literally, “at his [at Jesus’s] heads”). Compare the plural-for-singular “zu seinen Häupten,” e.g., in Genesis 28:11, which in Luther’s rendering reads “er nahm einen Stein des Orts, und legte ihn zu seinen Häupten, und legte sich an demselbigen Ort schlafen” (“he [Jacob] took a stone of the place [Luz], and laid it [as a pillow] at [below] his head, and laid himself to sleep in this same place”). In Matthew 27:37, later Bibles give “Und oben über sein Haupt setzten sie” (“And high up, above his head, they put”) in place of Luther’s “Und oben zu seinen Häupten hefteten sie” (“And high up, at [above] his head [literally, ‘at his heads’], they tacked”).

¹⁹⁶ To anyone religiously celebrating the Passover, this expression would be understood first and foremost as a messianic title; to the Romans, as a challenge to the emperor.

¹⁹⁷ Echoing Psalm 22:8.

¹⁹⁸ Here (Matthew 27:42) the Jewish leaders are being sarcastic (in 27:40 they had just declared to Jesus, “Der du den Tempel Gottes zerbrichst und bauest ihn in dreien Tagen, hilf dir selber!” [“You who destroys the Temple of God and builds it in three days, save yourself!”]); the Gospel of Matthew depicts Jesus as being able to do something to save himself from crucifixion, however, should he wish this (see 26:53, where he says, “meinest du, dass ich nicht könnte meinen Vater bitten, dass er mir zuschickte mehr denn zwölf Legion Engel?” [“do you think that I could not ask of my father that he send me more than twelve legions of angels?”]).

¹⁹⁹ The (old-fashioned) formulation “lüstets ihn” (i.e., “lüstet es ihn”) means “if it delights him”; it does not mean not “he lied.”

²⁰⁰ Echoing Psalm 22:9.

²⁰¹ This verse (Matthew 27:43) fits with the sentiments of Wisdom of Solomon 2:18, “Ist der Gerechte Gottes Sohn, so wird er ihm helfen” (“If the righteous one is God’s son, then he [God] will save him [the son]”).

²⁰² In BWV 244.1, an early scribal copy of the libretto, and the poet’s reprinted libretto, this reads “Seelen”; in BWV 244.2, it reads “Seele.” There is no difference in meaning. (The “n”-ending in “Seelen” does not denote a plural. It is simply the older-fashioned form for a singular possessive noun.)

²⁰³ The “unblessed/unhallowed” bones littered about Gologotha would contrast with the “selige Gebeine” (“blessed/hallowed bones”) of Jesus in movement 67.

²⁰⁴ Jesus is called “der HERR der Herrlichkeit” (“the LORD of glory”) in 1 Corinthians 2:8 and James 2:1. The title links the concept of God’s glory in the Hebrew scriptures (often associated with the Tabernacle or the divine presence) with God’s glory in the New Testament (associated with Jesus Christ, even in his crucifixion).

²⁰⁵ This line draws on the language of Galatians 3:13, “Christus aber hat uns erlöst von dem Fluch des Gesetzes, da er ward ein Fluch für uns—denn es steht geschrieben: Verflucht ist jedermann, der am Holz hängt” (“But Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law [of Moses], when [on the cross] he became a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is every one who hangs on a [piece of] wood’”), quoting Deuteronomy 21:23.

²⁰⁶ Jesus is referred to as creator, e.g., in Colossians 1:16, which in the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day reads “durch ihn ist alles geschaffen, das im Himmel und auf Erden ist; … es ist alles durch ihn und zu ihm geschaffen” (“by him [Jesus] is created everything that is in heaven and on earth; everything is created by him and unto him”).

²⁰⁷ The idea of Jesus being “lifted up” (on the cross) and thereby entering the process of being “[with]drawn” back to God the father in heaven comes from John 12:32, which in the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day reads “Und ich, wenn ich erhöhet werde von der Erden, so will ich sie alle zu mir ziehen” (“And I [Jesus], when I am lifted up from the earth [on to the cross], then will I [through the word of the gospel] draw them all to me [and, thereby, toward God in heaven]”).

²⁰⁸ “Der Schöpfer Himmels und der Erden Soll Erd und Luft entzogen werden” means not “Earth and air/sky shall be withdrawn from the creator of heaven and earth” but “The creator of heaven and earth shall be withdrawn from earth and air/sky.”

²⁰⁹ The cross as seeming curse but actual blessing (see the footnote regarding line 4 in movement 59, above) continues at this point. Lutheran Passion sermon materials in Bach’s personal library, following Augustine, refer to Jesus as “der rechte Hohepriester” (“the proper high priest”), with his hands “ausgespannt” (“extended”) on the cross to bless his followers (i.e., by forming the posture of the priest in a prayer of blessing). Presumably the librettist uses the singular form “die Hand” (“the/his hand”) because the plural (“die Hände” [“the/his hands”]) would not rhyme and scan properly with “ausgespannt” in the next line.

²¹⁰ Compare to Matthew 23:37, “Jerusalem … wie oft habe ich deine Kinder versammlen wollen, wie eine Henne versammlet ihre Küchlein unter ihre Flügel, und ihr habt nicht gewollt” (“Jerusalem, … how often have I wanted to gather your children, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you all did not want [this]”).

²¹¹ Although Luther’s biblical text (in Matthew 27:46a) gave the (Hebrew) word “lama” (“why”) only once, Bach musically set the word twice. In its immediate quotation in German (27:46b), however, he matched the biblical text and musically set the corresponding word “warum” (“why”) only once.

²¹² Nearly all Luther Bibles of Bach’s day employ a period here, not a question mark.

²¹³ Matthew 27:45-50.

²¹⁴ The “sixth hour” is at noon.

²¹⁵ In the Gospel of Matthew this quotation from Psalm 22:2 was rendered in (transliterated) Aramaic, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani” (not the Hebrew, “Eli, Eli, lama asabthani”). While most ancient Greek sources of Matthew give the phrase in its Aramaic wording, Luther’s translation of the Gospel provides a transliteration of the traditional Hebrew text from Psalm 22. Thus, in Luther’s text these words of Jesus are given as an even more literal fulfillment of (what was taken to be) prophecy than they were in Matthew’s text.

²¹⁶ That is, the prophet Elijah did not die but ascended to heaven, and thus he could be in a position to help Jesus, whose cry to “my God” (“Eli” in Hebrew and also in an Aramaic form attested in the Dead Sea Scrolls) is depicted in Matthew as having been misunderstood as a cry to the prophet; consider also Malachi 4:5, “Siehe, ich will euch senden den Propheten Elia, ehe denn da komme der grosse und schreckliche Tag des HERRN” (“Look, I [the LORD of hosts] will send you the prophet Elijah before there should come the great and fearful day of the LORD”).

²¹⁷ A stanza of “O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden.”

²¹⁸ The verb “herfürtreten” means, literally, “to step forth.” We have translated it here in the sense that Luther uses in Luke 1:80, where it is said of John the Baptist: “er war in der Wüsten, bis dass er sollte hervortreten vor das Volk Israel” (“he was in the desert, until he should make his appearance unto the people Israel”).

²¹⁹ The Luther Bibles of Bach’s day here read “die da Jesus waren nachgefolget aus Galiläa” (“who had followed Jesus there from Galilee”).

²²⁰ The Luther Bibles of Bach’s day, however, here read not “Leichnam” (“corpse”) but “Leib” (“body”).

²²¹ Matthew 27:51-58.

²²² The Calov Commentary Bible (owned by Bach) explains that this happened to indicate that Jesus, as God’s high priest, would enter the Temple’s Holy of Holies with his own blood and earn for his followers an everlasting redemption (i.e., and thus the animal and vegetable sacrifices offered in the Temple for centuries would no longer be necessary).

²²³ “Von obenan bis untenaus” (“from above in until below out”) was a rare expression in Luther’s day and also in Bach’s day (likewise “von oben an bis unten aus”). The standard expression was simply “von oben bis unten” (“from top to bottom,” which would be a more direct translation of the Greek in Matthew). By rendering not only with the “oben” versus “unten” but additionally with the “an” versus “aus,” Luther apparently meant to intensify and emphasize strongly the very thoroughness of the temple veil’s being torn apart (both “top-to-bottom” and “in-and-out [i.e., ‘out-and-out’]”).

²²⁴ There are many examples in the Hebrew Scriptures of the earth shaking as a sign of divine judgment of God’s people or of the last times.

²²⁵ The Calov Commentary Bible (owned by Bach) says that the rocks were split apart as a sign of Godly wrath against the Jews. The Olearius Bible (also owned by Bach) provides similar commentary.

²²⁶ Using language from Ezekiel 37:12.

²²⁷ Lutheranism held that the true church of God had been established before the fall of Adam and Eve into sin and, further, that all messianic promises in the Hebrew Scriptures refer to Jesus of Nazareth. Thus, living by faith in God’s promises, the saintly Israelites of the Hebrew Scriptures (but not later Jews) were considered to be part of the true church, “die Heiligen” (“the saints”), and could rise at this moment.

²²⁸ The interpretive challenges of the Greek in Matthew here are several. Luther gives no evidence of being troubled, however, by the problems of narrative chronology in his translation. Remarks John Calvin: “It is absurd . . . to imagine that they spent three days alive and breathing, hidden in tombs.” The arising of the saints here in Matthew is in any event a foreshadowing of the general resurrection of the dead at the End Time.

²²⁹ See, e.g., Isaiah 52:1, “du heilige Stadt Jerusalem” (“you holy city, Jerusalem”). See also Matthew 4:5, “in die heilige Stadt . . . auf die Zinne des Tempels” (“into the holy city [Jerusalem] . . . on the pinnacle of the temple”).

²³⁰ Luther’s biblical source text (the Erasmus 1519 edition of the Greek text of the New Testament) reads “Joses” here, where more reliable New Testament sources give “Joseph.”

²³¹ Zebedee was the father of Jesus’s disciples James and John (see also movement 18, above). His wife was traditionally, including in the Lutheranism of Bach’s day, taken to be the “Salome” of Mark 15:40.

²³² The Luther Bibles of Bach’s day here read “Leib” (“body”), not “Leichnam” (“corpse”), and “Leichnam” appears nowhere else, either, in Luther’s rendering of the Gospel of Matthew. Perhaps Bach’s text simply represents a slip; or perhaps it (unintentionally?) reflects the wording in the passion narrative in Luther’s rendering of Mark (14:8; 15:43,45) and John (19:31,38,40), or in his rendering of Deuteronomy 21:22-23, “Wenn jemand eine Sünde getan hat, die des Todes würdig ist, und wird also getötet, dass man hängt ihn an ein Holz, so soll sein Leichnam nicht über Nacht an dem Holz bleiben” (“If someone has committed a sin that is worthy of death and he be therefore put to death such that he is hanged on a [piece of] wood, then his corpse is not to remain on the wood overnight”)—note that in Galatians 3:13, where this verse is quoted, Luther also gives the word “Holz” (“wood,” not “tree”); consider also “Leichnam” in the commentary at movement 64; likewise “Leichenstein” (“tombstone”; literally, “corpse’s stone”) at movement 68, and the common expression “Holz zum Kreuz” (“wood of/for the cross”; e.g., at movement 1).

²³³ There is no real interpretive difference between this unusual and slightly clumsy nominative subject “Adams Fallen” (“Adam’s falling [into sin]”) and the standard expression “Adams Fall” (“Adam’s fall [into sin]”). It would seem that the librettist employed the gerund simply to accommodate the need for an extra syllable in the poetry’s scansion.

²³⁴ In Genesis 3:8, God is depicted as walking in the garden of Eden “da der Tag kühle worden war” (“when the day had become cool”; a literal rendering of the underlying Hebrew would be “in the breeze of the day” [i.e., a poetic expression for “in the evening”]); Adam and Eve, having eaten of the tree that God had commanded them not to eat from (and thus, in traditional Christian interpretation, having fallen into a state of sin), hid themselves among the trees, but then they came out into the open, narratively making manifest to the Lord their having disobeyed him.

²³⁵ Here the meaning of “ihn” (accusative, either “him” or “it”) is not entirely clear, although its antecedent is probably not “[der] Fall” (“[the] fall ([of Adam into sin]”), not least because strictly speaking the subject of this sentence is not “[der] Fall” (which is the regular noun that is used by the librettist in movements 22 and 67) but “[das] Fallen” (a verbal noun, “[the] falling [of Adam into sin]”). The probably two best guesses, then, are: 1) by dying sacrificially on the cross, Jesus, the New Adam (in Hebrew, “adam” = “man”), bears down sin-stained Old Adam, the source of the from-then-on inherited “original sin” that has thereby corrupted human nature—many earlier and some contemporary paintings and woodcuts thus depict Adam’s skull beneath the cross of Jesus; or 2) this is a reference to Genesis 3:15, a textually and interpretively much contested verse that in any event involves violence against the devil (i.e., traditionally associated with the “serpent” of Genesis 3)—there are also many artworks that show the cross crushing the devil (or a dragon representing Satan). We have settled on the first option, as several historical dictionaries note that the separable verb “niederdrücken” (“to press/weigh/bear down”) can be used as a synonym for “niederschlagen” (“to strike down”), and in Bach’s day the verb “niederschlagen” was employed to describe Jesus striking down Old Adam, e.g., in the hymn lines “Durch dein Blut und Kreuzestod: / Schlage du die Sündenglieder / Meines alten Adams nieder” (“Through your blood and death on the cross: / Strike down the sin-marked members / Of my Old Adam [i.e., the ‘Old Adam’ in me, my nature/essence that is corrupted with original sin]”).

²³⁶ “Am Abend drücket ihn der Heiland nieder” does not mean “In the evening the savior bowed himself down.”

²³⁷ The passion narrative does not clearly indicate when exactly Jesus died on the cross, but it does say (in Matthew 27:57-58, as set in movement 63 above) that “Am Abend aber kam ein reicher Mann von Arimathia, der hiess Joseph, welcher auch ein Jünger Jesu war, der ging zu Pilato und bat ihn um den Leichnam Jesu” (“But in the evening came a rich man of Arimathea, called Joseph, who was also a disciple of Jesus; he went to Pilate and asked him for Jesus’s corpse [to bury]”); Lutheranism taught that on the cross Jesus completed his suffering for sin and that his descent into the grave/hell was not a extension of his punishment—Jesus’s descent was held to be a step in his exaltation and his victory over death and sin, not a final stage of his humiliation and suffering. Note, too, that the poet apparently based his libretto in part on passion sermons of the seventeenth-century theologian Heinrich Müller (which are known to have been in Bach’s personal library); Müller writes, e.g., “Am Abend, da der Tag kühle worden war, kam die Sünde der Menschen erstlich ans Licht; am Abend nimmt sie Christus wieder mit sich ins Grab” (“In the evening [in the garden of Eden], when the day had grown cool, the sin of humankind initially came to light; in the evening, Christ takes it [i.e., sin] back with him into the grave”).

²³⁸ To Noah in the ark, after the biblical flood had subsided—Genesis 8:11.

²³⁹ The poet is using the theologically somewhat clumsy expression “Friedensschluss mit Gott” (“peace treaty with God”) to refer to the crucifixion as a fulfillment of the “covenant” (Luther, “Bund”) that God made with Noah and his descendants, in Genesis 9:8-17, that never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood and never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth. Passion sermons of the seventeenth-century theologian Heinrich Müller (known to have been in Bach’s personal library) refer to the crucified Jesus as “das reine, fruchtbringende Täublein das … trägt ein Ölblatt in seinem Munde; sein Begräbniss versichert uns der Barmherzigkeit Gottes, des Friedens mit seinem Vater, und dass das Zorn-Gewässer [von der Sündflut] Gottes nunmehr gefallen sei” (“the pure, fruitful dove that … carries an olive leaf in its/his mouth; his [Jesus’s] burial assures us of God’s mercy, of peace with [God] his father, and that God’s wrath-water [of Noah’s sin-flood] is from now on subsided”).

²⁴⁰ Probably alluding to Proverbs 20:9, “Wer kann sagen: Ich bin rein in meinem Herzen, und lauter von meiner Sünde?” (“Who can say: ‘I am pure in my heart, and clear of my sin’?”). Compare also the language of a poem that appeared in the famous contemporary hymn and prayer book Himmlisches Freuden-Mahl, by Johann Rittmeier, together with a marvelous woodcut picturing Jesus sweeping snakes out of a human heart: “Jesu kehre selbst und fege / Was dir misfällt aus dem Wege, / Mach mein Herz von Sünden rein, / Lass es deine Wohnung sein” (“Jesus, do—yourself—sweep and mop / Out of the way [in my heart] what displeases you; / Make my heart pure of sins; / Let it be your dwelling place”).

²⁴¹ “Selbst” here is apparently an intensifier, and despite its position in the verse, the word would most likely refer to the speaker, in an emphatic as opposed to a reflexive usage, meant to convey not the sense “I want to bury Jesus—by myself, without any assistance—inside my heart,” but “I myself—as far as I am concerned, for my own part—want to bury Jesus inside my heart”). Other, probably less likely possibilities are that the “selbst” refers to Jesus, yielding the sacramental sense “I want to bury Jesus himself inside my heart” (in Lutheran teaching, Jesus himself is physically present in the consecrated elements of the sacrament of communion, and there is occasional attestation in older Lutheran writings of referring to the taking of communion as “burying Jesus in the heart”; in any event, whether “selbst” here means “myself” or “himself,” this aria does continue the sacramental meditations of movement 13, above. Another of the possible but probably less likely senses of “selbst” here would be as a synonym for “daselbst” (“in said place”; namely, in my heart).

²⁴² The word “wieder” (“again”) does not appear in Matthew or in Luther’s translation. “Auferstehen” (“rise”) and “Wiederauferstehen” (“rise again”) both, however, carry essentially the same message.

²⁴³ The Luther Bibles read not “wie ihrs wisset” (“[as well] as you know how”; hyperliterally, “as you it know”) but “wie ihr wisset” (“as you know [to do]”). Later Bibles give “so gut ihr könnt” (“as well as you can”).

²⁴⁴ Matthew 27:59-66.

²⁴⁵ Some modern printings of this libretto give the German text incorrectly as “welches er hatte in einen Fels hauen,” i.e., they lack the word “lassen” (and some printings that do include the German “lassen” do not accommodate it in their English translation); for “he had hewn,” the German would have been “er hatte gehauen/behauen.” Luther’s idiosyncratic rendering of the verse “welches er hatte lassen in einen Fels hauen” means “which he had [arranged to have] had hewn into a rock.” Luther’s wording avoids any implication that Joseph himself—a wealthy person of high social status—might have performed the hard manual labor of rock-cutting.

²⁴⁶ “Des andern Tages, der da folget nach dem Rüsttage” does not mean “On the next day, [the one] that followed after the Sabbath day.” The “Rüsttag” is not a “day of rest” but a “day of preparation” (derived from the verb “rüsten” in its sense of “to prepare”).

²⁴⁷ The convoluted expression in Matthew, avoiding the use of the word “sabbath,” may reflect awareness of the religious implausibility in first-century Judaism of the events depicted as taking place on a Saturday, the sabbath, a day of religious observance and of rest (i.e., which would be profaned in the priests’ work of sealing the gravestone, in Matthew 27:66). The Olearius Bible Commentary, which Bach owned, notes here that “Unsern hochgelobten Heiland feindeten sie an, als einen Sabbats Schänder . . . aber ihre tolle rachgierige Unart hier v.63 erweisete, sie wären die ärgsten Sabbats Schänder keiner Ruhe würdig” (“They [the Jews] were hostile to [Jesus] our highly lauded savior, as a profaner of the sabbath . . . but their crazy, vengeful bad behavior here [in Matthew 27] verse 63 demonstrates that they would be the worst profaners of the sabbath, worthy of no rest”).

²⁴⁸ The chief priests and Pharisees declare that Jesus had declared he would rise again “after three days.” Matthew 16:21, however, depicts Jesus declaring that he would be raised “on the third day” (Luther Bibles, “am dritten Tag”). The Jewish leaders were apparently claiming, then, that Jesus had declared he would be resurrected not on the Sunday (“on the third day”) but the Monday (“after three days,” i.e., on the fourth day).

²⁴⁹ Luther’s text here reads “wie ihr wisset” (“as you know”), not, as in Bach’s materials, “wie ihrs wisset” (literally, “as you know it”). The Olearius Bible (which Bach owned) comments a few verses earlier, at Matthew 27:60, “Bei dem Grabe des HERRNS ist zu merken: … Die Hüter waren Heiden” (“In the case of the grave of the Lord [it] is to be noted: … The guards were gentiles”).

²⁵⁰ The word “they” (referring to the chief priests and Pharisees) is the subject of all three verbs in the verse, including the sealing.

²⁵¹ Quoting from Isaiah 43:24, “Ja, mir hast du Arbeit gemacht in deinen Sünden und hast mir Mühe gemacht in deinen Missetaten” (“Yes, in your sins you have made [a great deal of] work for me [the LORD; i.e., typologically, Jesus], and in your misdeeds you have made [a great deal of] trouble for me”).

²⁵² “Mein Fall” connotes not “my disgrace” or “my case” or “my downfall” but “my fall [into sin, through Adam].”

²⁵³ The leading German historical dictionary gives a definition of “tausend” as Leipzig dialect for “thousandfold.”

²⁵⁴ The poet’s original puts all the words of this aria-tutti in the combined voices of the two allegorical characters, as was usual for the final movement of a dialogue. In composing this movement, though, Bach created some musical independence of the two in keeping with the work’s double-chorus scoring. This line—“[Gl:] Ruhet sanfte, ruhet wohl! ([B:] “Rest gently, rest well“)—Bach appears to have assembled himself, almost entirely from words in the original poem. It is unclear why he did not simply echo the wording of line 3, “Ruhe sanfte, sanfte ruh!” (“Rest gently; gently rest”), which has the same scansion. He may have been drawing upon the wording of the closing chorus in his St. John Passion, “Ruht wohl, ihr heiligen Gebeine, / Die ich nun weiter nicht beweine, / Ruht wohl und bringt auch mich zur Ruh!” (“Rest well, you saintly bones, / Which I will no longer bewail; / Rest well and bring also me unto rest”); note that the St. John Passion’s “heilige Gebeine” does not mean “relics” (i.e., in this context, any physical remains of a deceased holy/saintly person), a concept that would have been (unfavorably) associated with the Roman Catholic church.

²⁵⁵ Usually, “sich niedersetzten” means simply “to sit oneself down.” Here it is apparently employed in its sense of “to settle oneself down,” as a synonym for “sich niederlassen.” (The poet most likely does not mean to stress that the “we” here are sitting by the grave, as opposed to standing.)