GENERAL NOTE: Movements 1, 4, and 9 take their texts verbatim from stanzas 1, 5, and 12 of the hymn “Ich hab in Gottes Herz und Sinn.” Movements 2 and 7 feature the verbatim texts of stanzas 2 and 10, along with interspersed elaboration and commentary by the anonymous cantata librettist. The remaining internal movements paraphrase stanzas 4, 6, 8, 9, and 11.

¹ “Sinn” here is apparently understood to mean “mind”; these lines draw on the sentiments of Romans 8:27, “Der aber die Herzen forschet, der weiss, was des Geistes Sinn sei; denn er vertritt die Heiligen nach dem, das Gott gefället” (“But [God] who searches our hearts, he knows what the mind of the [Holy] Spirit is; for he [the Spirit] intercedes for the saints according to that which pleases God”).

² “Böse” here apparently means “bad” not in its sense of “being of poor quality or little worth” but in its sense of “being evil.” Similarly, 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22 states, “Prüfet aber alles, und das Gute behaltet; meidet allen bösen Schein” (“But test everything and keep the good; avoid all evil appearance”).

³ These lines refer to the wording of Philippians 1:21, “Denn Christus ist mein Leben, und Sterben ist mein Gewinn” (“For Christ is my life, and death is my gain”), where death is understood as a “gain” rather than as a loss; the grammatically plausible meaning of “Gewinn” as “reward” would suggest a very un-Lutheran notion of being rewarded for having personally accomplished one’s faith in Jesus.

⁴ This libretto seems to use “selbst” as a synonym for “sogar” in its sense of “indeed.”

⁵ This line draws on the sentiments of John 5:24, where Jesus says to his disciples, “Wahrlich, wahrlich, ich sage euch: Wer mein Wort hört und glaubt dem, der mich gesandt hat, der hat das ewige Leben; . . . er ist vom Tode zum Leben hindurchgedrungen” (“Truly, truly, I to to you: Whoever hears my word and has faith in him [God the father] who has sent me, he has eternal life; he is pressed through, [against resistance,] from death to life”).

⁶ With regard to this libretto’s use of the word “selbst,” see fn. 4, above.

⁷ In Isaiah 54:10, which in the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day reads “Denn es sollen wohl Berge weichen, und Hügel hinfallen: aber meine Gnade soll nicht von dir weichen und der Bund meines Friedens soll nicht hinfallen, spricht der HERR” (“For mountains shall well give way, and hills fall down: but my mercy shall not give way from you and the covenant of my peace shall not fall down from you, declares the LORD”).

⁸ The adjective “grause,” defined in the leading eighteenth-century dictionary as “einen hohen Grad der Furcht, des Schreckens und des Abscheues erweckend” (“arousing a high degree of fear, terror, and disgust”), was seldom used in Bach’s day and was typically found only in poetry (though there, too, only rarely).

⁹ “Mein Vater muss mich lieben” might simply be rendered “[God] my father must love me.” But this could too easily be taken in the sense of “It must be the case that God my father does indeed love me,” whereas the sense is probably meant more along the lines of “God my father has to love me, because he is bound by his word to do so”: This line seems to draw on the sentiments of John 14:23, “Wer mich liebet, der wird mein Wort halten, und mein Vater wird ihn lieben, und wir werden zu ihm kommen und Wohnung bei ihm machen” (“Whoever loves me [Jesus], he will keep my word, and [God] my father will love him, and we [God the father and I] will come to him and make [our] dwelling place in him”). In this context the phrase “und Wohnung bei ihm machen” draws on the Lutheran image of Jesus dwelling “in” the heart of the Christian believer; “bei” here carries the sense of “in” rather than “with.”

¹⁰ “Durch” was sometimes employed in the sense of “mit” (“with”).

¹¹ The sense of this line is partly derived from Isaiah 49:16, “Siehe, in die Hände habe ich dich gezeichnet” (“Look, into the [palms of my] hands have I [God] engraved [the names of] you [Israel, my people, so that I will always be reminded of you]”). Lutheran commentary of Bach’s day interpreted this as a foreshadowing of Jesus’s metaphorically engraving the names of his people into the palms of his hands by dint of allowing himself to be nailed to the cross (i.e., as opposed to being bound with ropes).

¹² This line alludes to the notion of God’s “sea of grace,” which goes back to early Christian interpretation of Micah 7:19-20 (a passage, incidentally, whose commentary Bach highlighted in his Calov Bible), which speaks of God’s mercy to Jacob, Abraham, and their descendants in casting all of his people’s sins into the depths of the sea; this “sea” was taken to be a foreshadowing of “das rote Gnadenmeer” (“the red sea of grace”) of the sin-purifying blood of Jesus that is “poured” upon his followers. With regard to “casting into the sea,” see also fn. 17, below, about the biblical character Jonah.

¹³ This line alludes to the very outset of all biblical narrative: Genesis 1:1-2, “Am Anfang schuf Gott Himmel und Erde; und die Erde war wüste und leer, und es war finster auf der Tiefe; und der Geist Gottes schwebte auf dem Wasser” (“In the beginning, God created heaven and earth; and the earth was waste and empty, and it was dark atop the abyss; and the spirit of God hovered atop the [primordial] water”). With regard to being rescued by God from “grossen Wassern” (“great waters”), see fn. 24, below. The general point is that God is able totally to control the waters.

¹⁴ With regard to this libretto’s use of the word “selbst,” see fn. 4, above.

¹⁵ As promised in Isaiah 43:2, “Denn so du durchs Wasser gehst, will ich bei dir sein, dass dich die Ströme nicht sollen ersäufen” (“For if you [my people, Israel] go through the [metaphorical] water [of troubles and persecution], I will be with you, so that the streams shall not drown you”).

¹⁶ This libretto apparently uses “schon” not in its sense of “already” but in one of its older-German senses, as a synonym for “dennoch” (“nevertheless,” even so”).

¹⁷ Jonah 2:4.

¹⁸ As narrated in Matthew 14:22-23.

¹⁹ In older German, “wachen für/vor” was a synonym for “wachen über” (“to watch over”); in older English, “to watch for” could, likewise, be a synonym for “to watch over.”

²⁰ The sense of this line is partly derived from Proverbs 4:26-27, “Lass deinen Fuss gleich für sich gehen, so gehst du gewiss; wanke weder zur Rechten noch zur Linken; wende deinen Fuss vom Bösen” (“If you let your foot go straight ahead [on the path], then you will go safely; waver neither to the right nor to the left; veer your foot from evil”).

²¹ “Bis an der Tage letzten Rest” means not “Until the day of its [my foot’s] last rest,” but “Until the last remainder of [my] days.”

²² The notion of Jesus being a “rock” is expressed most forcefully in 1 Corinthians 10:4, “Sie tranken aber von dem geistlichen Fels, welcher mit folgte, der war Christus” (“But they [the ancient Israelites, in the desert,] drank from the spiritual rock [in Exodus 17:1-7, Numbers 20:1-13] that followed [along] with [them, on their exodus from slavery in Egypt], [this rock] who was [a manifestation of the preexistent] Christ [Jesus]”). The verse from 1 Corinthians is from the epistle reading for this cantata’s liturgical occasion.

²³ With regard to this libretto’s use of the word “schon,” see fn. 16, above.

²⁴ As God does in Psalm 144:7, so as to “errette mich von grossen Wassern” (“rescue me from great waters”).

²⁵ The sense of these last two lines is derived from 1 Peter 5:6, “So demütiget euch nun unter die gewaltige Hand Gottes, dass er euch erhöhe zu seiner Zeit” (“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the powerful hand of God, that he may lift you up you in his [good/due] time”).

²⁶ This line probably reflects the kind of “tun und lassen” (“doing and letting/leaving”) language that is employed, e.g., in Luke 11:42, where Jesus says, to the Pharisees who are said to follow picayune aspects of the law of Moses, such as tithing herbs and spices, and to neglect its weightier matters, such as loving God: “Dies sollte man tun und jenes nicht lassen” (“This [thing] one should do and that [thing one should] not let [go]”; or, “This [thing] one should do and that [thing one should] not leave [undone]”).

²⁷ The sense of this line is derived from Romans 8:28, “Wir wissen aber, dass denen, die Gott lieben, alle Dinge zum Besten dienen” (“But we [followers of Jesus] know that all things [that God does will indeed] serve for the best to those who love God”).

²⁸ The expression “flesh and blood” here does not mean “one’s relatives.” It is a quasi-technical term for (fallen, intrinsically sinful) human nature. The classic use of the expression is found in 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 [one’s essentially corrupted] flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God”). It is the “spirit” that inherits the kingdom of God.

²⁹ The full sense of these last three lines is derived from Hebrews 10:35-36, “Werfet euer Vertrauen nicht weg, welches eine grosse Belohnung hat; Geduld aber ist euch not, auf dass ihr den Willen Gottes tut und die Verheissung empfahet” (“Do not cast away your trust [in God], which has a great reward; but patience is needed of you, so that you [can] do the will of God and receive the promise [of eternal life]”).

³⁰ In Bach’s own score of this bass aria, the word “Stürmen” (“storming”) is employed consistently. In the original separate performing part, Bach’s assistant copyist wrote “Stürmen,” but at each of its instances there also appears the word “Brausen” (“blustering”), in Bach’s handwriting, without any cross-outs of the “Stürmen” entries. This suggests that “Brausen” was meant only as an alternative for any bass who would find singing the aria’s extended melismas on the “ü” in “Stürmen” to be unmanageably awkward.

³¹These lines draw on the language of the parable about harvesting Christian converts as “wheat” in Mark 4:26-29, where, in verse 28, Jesus says, “Denn die Erde bringt von ihr selbst . . . den vollen Weizen in den Ähren” (“For the earth brings forth of itself . . . the full wheat in the ears [of this grain]”).

³² This is an adaptation of the widely-cited command given in most Christian renderings of Psalm 2:12, a passage the meaning of whose Hebrew wording is now uncertain and which as a result has been variously rendered in other languages—in English, e.g., as “Kiss [i.e., pay respect to] the son/Son [of God, i.e., Jesus],” or “Seize upon instruction,” or “Embrace discipline,” or “Pay homage in good faith.”

³³ “Zucht” has a wide variety of meanings in older German. Here it is apparently alluding in part to the way it is used in Proverbs 1:7, the motto of that book, which in the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day reads “Des HERREN Furcht ist Anfang zu lernen; die Ruchlosen verachten Weisheit und Zucht” (“The fear of the LORD is [the] beginning of learning [for the person who hopes to be morally good]; the wicked despise wisdom and instruction”).

³⁴ To “fall into God’s hands/hand” was said variously in the Bible to be a frightening or comforting thing. Hebrews 10:31 proclaims, “Schrecklich ists, in die Hände des lebendigen Gottes zu fallen” (“It is fearful to fall into the hands of the living God”); but in 1 Chronicles 22:13 (1 Chronicles 21:13 in today’s Bibles and in some Bibles of Bach’s day), King David of Israel says, in the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day, “Ich will in die Hand des HERRN fallen, denn seine Barmherzigkeit ist sehr gross” (“I wish to fall into the hand of the LORD, for his mercifulness is very great”).

³⁵ “Gelassen” is used here in its older sense of the resignation and calmness that is associated with leaving things to God’s will, as opposed to its modern sense of general placidity or imperturbability.

³⁶ “Ohnfehlbar” is an old-fashioned form of “unfehlbar,” here apparently employed not in its sense of “without fail” (“unfailingly”) but of “without mistake” (“infallibly”).

³⁷ The sense of these lines is partly derived from Matthew 24:13, “Wer aber beharret bis ans Ende, der wird selig” (“But whoever endures until the end, he will be blessed [with eternal salvation]”).

³⁸ With regard to this libretto’s use of the word “schon,” see fn. 16, above.

³⁹ With regard to this libretto’s use of the word “selbst,” see fn. 4, above.

⁴⁰ The antecedent here for the “ihr” ([feminine] “it”) is more logically “[die] Ehre” (“honor”) from the hymn stanza than “[die] Erde” (“earth”) from the interspersed poetry. In the libretto of Bach’s Cantata 65, this same hymn stanza ends with the wording “deine Ehr je mehr und mehr / Sich in mir selbst erhöhe” (“your honor, ever more and more, / May, indeed, lift itself up in me”); note that Bach’s score of Cantata 65 does not provide the verbal text for this movement, but Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, who inherited his father’s manuscript, later entered into this score the hymn stanza “Ei nun, mein Gott, so fall ich dir,” apparently on the basis of the readings in the now-lost original performing parts.

⁴¹ “Bereiten” seems to be used here not in its sense of “to prepare” but of “to afford” in its sense of “to give forth” (i.e., to give forth in blissful performance the subequent aria, “Meinem Hirten bleib ich treu” (“I remain faithful to [Jesus] my shepherd”).

⁴² In the subsequent aria, the instruments of the violin family (“the strings”) are not “muted” in the sense that the players affix a damper on the bridge of their instruments to “mute” (i.e., “soften,” not “silence”) the sound; rather, they play “pizzicato” (plucking the strings with their fingers instead of striking the strings with the hair of their bows), apparently to imitate the relatively “muted,” soft sound of the (biblical) lyre.

⁴³ In Christian interpretation, Isaiah 9:6, “Denn uns ist ein Kind geboren, ein Sohn ist uns gegeben; . . . er heisst . . . Friede-Fürst” (“For to us a child is [to be] born, to us a son is [to be] given; . . . he is [to be] called ‘prince of peace’”), was and is traditionally understood to be a prophesying of God’s messiah, Jesus.

⁴⁴ It is very difficult to tell whether this repeated line was part of the original poetry or is an artifact of Bach’s musical choices.

⁴⁵ 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”).

⁴⁶ With regard to the repeating of this line, see fn. 44, above.

⁴⁷ A reflection of Romans 14:8-9, “Leben wir, so leben wir dem HERRN” (“If we live, then we live unto the LORD [Jesus]”).

⁴⁸ The sense of this line is apparently derived from Luther’s idiosyncratic rendering of Psalm 117:2, “Seine Gnade und Wahrheit waltet über uns in Ewigkeit” (“His [the LORD’s] grace and truth presides over us into eternity”).

⁴⁹ The verb “erkalten” (“to become cold”; or, “to cool down”; or, “to wane”), not to be confused with “sich erkälten” (“to catch a cold”), was sometimes used in older German euphemistically for “dying, losing one’s vital functions.”

⁵⁰ The expression “genug getan,” in this context, is a reference to the technical term “Gegugtuung”: “doing (legal) satisfaction,” in its specific theological sense; namely, the atonement effected by Jesus’s dying on the cross for humankind’s sin, in accordance with the belief that Jesus’s suffering was a sacrifice serving as the penalty owed to God for sin. As Luther fundamentally expressed it, in Crucigers Sommerpostille of 1544 (a printed collection of Luther’s sermons), “Das Wort Genugtuung [sollte] deuten, dass Christus hat für unsere Sünde genug getan” (“The word ‘Genugtuung’ [should be] interpreted [against ‘the Papists,’ as to capture the sense] that Christ has atoned [or, ‘has made satisfaction’; literally, ‘has done enough’] for our sin”). Lutheranism taught that although Jesus died for all people, not all people will actually obtain salvation with a blessed afterlife in heaven. (Calvinism, by contrast, taught that Jesus died only for the few people that God had, already before Creation, chosen to bless with eternal salvation.)

⁵¹ “Steg” had several meanings in Bach’s day; and especially in poetry, where the word was valued for its handy rhyme with “Weg” (“way,” “path,” “track,” “road,” “route,” etc.), the exactness of its denotation was not always truly significant. Usually, “Steg” meant “footbridge,” but here it is most probably employed in one of its other senses, a “schmaler Fussweg” (“narrow footpath”).

⁵² In older German, “weisen” was sometimes, as here, employed as a synonym for “belehren,” “unterweisen,” “anweisen,” or “einweisen” (all of which mean “to instruct/teach”). With regard to “unterweisen,” see fn. 53, below.

⁵³ Lines 3–4 use the language of Psalm 32:8, where Luther takes it to be God who declares, “Ich will dich unterweisen, und dir den Weg zeigen, den du wandeln sollt; ich will dich mit meinen Augen leiten” (“I will instruct/teach you, and show you the way that you shall go; I will guide you with my eyes”).

⁵⁴ This line assumes knowledge of Amos 9:6 (a passage the meaning of whose Hebrew is now uncertain and which has engendered a wide variety of modern renderings), which in the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day reads “Er ists, der seinen Saal im Himmel baut” (“He [the Lord God of hosts] is the one who builds his [palace] hall in heaven”).