Several movements rely on words of a cantata by Johann Oswald Knauer, published in 1720 in Gott-geheiligtes Singen und Spielen des Friedensteinischen Zions in Gotha.

[4] The closing chorale picks up the theme in the sixth verse of Samuel Rodigast's hymn "Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan" (What God does, is done well)[1] (1675).

[2] He performed it again around 1727, revised the instrumentation of an aria, and used it in his last years for a cantata for a Ratswahl ceremony, the inauguration of the town council at church, Lobe den Herrn, meine Seele, BWV 69.2.

[3] The cantata is in six movements: Bach reflected the duality within the words of the psalm in the opening chorus by creating a double fugue.

[5] In a later version, around 1727, Bach changed the instrumentation to alto, oboe and violin, possibly because he did not have players at hand for the first woodwind setting.