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The melody and Hymn, “Mach’s mit mir, Gott, nach deiner Gut’,” composed and written by Johann Hermann Schein, were first published together in broadsheet form (Leipzig, 1628) as a “Trost-Liedlein” for five voices. The melody and Hymn (stanzas i.-v.) were included in J.H. Schein’s Cantional Oder Gesang-Buch Augsburgischer Confession, of which the second edition was published at Leipzig in 1645 (first edition, 1627). The melody is generally known as “Eisenach.”
J.S. Bach uses the melody elsewhere in the Cantatas, “Wohl dem, der sich auf seinen Gott” (BWV 139), for the 23rd Sunday after Trinity; and “Ich steh’ mit einem Fuss im Grabe” (BWV 156), for the 3rd Sunday after Epiphany. There is another harmonisation of the tune in the Choralgesange, No. 237 (BWV 377).
The words of the Chorale are from an unknown source. Their workmanship does not suggest the “delicate unknown poet” who revised Barthold Heinrich Brockes’ text of the “Passion” for J.S. Bach, whom Schweitzer (vol. ii. 175) conjectures to be the author of the text of the Cantatas “Sie werden aus Saba Alle kommen” (BWV 65), “Mein liebster Jesu ist verloren” (BWV 154), and “Du wahrer Gott und Davidssohn” (BWV 23). The stanza is discoverable neither in B.H,Brockes’ libretto (set to music by George Frideric Handel and others), nor in the 1697 (Leipzig) eight-volumed Hymn-Book, from which J.S. Bach chiefly drew his Chorale texts.
Source: Charles Sanford Terry: Johann Sebastian Bach, Bach’s Chorals, vol. 1 The Hymns and Hymn Melodies of the “Passions” and Oratorios [1915], pp 40-41 |
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1. Durch dein Gefangniss, Gottes Sohn,
Ist uns die Freiheit kommen,
Dein Kerker ist der Gnadenthron,
Die Freistatt aller Frommen,
Denn gingst du nicht die Knechtschaft ein,
Musst’ unsre Knechtschaft ewig sein. |
Through your imprisonment, Son of God,
must our freedom come.
Your prison is the throne of grace,
the refuge of all believers.
If you had not accepted slavery,
our slavery would have been eternal. |
