"Herzlich lieb hab ich dich, o Herr" (From my heart I hold you dear, o Lord) is a Lutheran hymn in German by the Protestant theologian and reformer Martin Schalling, written in Amberg in 1569 and first printed in 1571.
[1][4] The hymn is often used for funerals, especially the third and last stanza,[5] "Ach Herr, laß dein lieb Engelein" (Ah Lord, let thine own angels dear).
The hymn is regarded as a Sterbelied (song for the dying), as Schalling expressed stations of the transition after death in the last stanza, according to Lutheran doctrine as understood in the 17th century.
[6][9] In Es erhub sich ein Streit, BWV 19, composed in 1726 for St. Michael's Day, he quotes the melody instrumentally in the central tenor aria, played by the trumpet.
[11] "Herzlich lieb hab ich dich, o Herr" is part of the current German Protestant hymnal Evangelisches Gesangbuch (EG) under number 397.