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Herr, gehe nicht ins Gericht BWV 105 / BC A 114
Ninth Sunday after Trinity, July 25, 1723
In late July 1723, two months after he entered office as cantor of St. Thomas School in Leipzig, Johann Sebastian Bach performed his cantata Herr, gehe nicht ins Gericht mit deinem Knecht BWV 105 (Lord, do not enter judgment with your servant) in the two main churches of the city. The work is for the ninth Sunday after Trinity; its text takes up the Gospel reading for that day, found in Luke 16:1–9, the parable of the unjust householder:
He, however, spoke to his disciples: There was a rich man who had a steward of whom it was rumored that he had wasted his goods. And he called him and spoke to him: How is it that I hear this of you? Give me an account of your stewardship, for henceforth you cannot be my steward! The steward said to himself: What shall I do? My lord has taken away my job; I cannot dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I am resolved what to do so that, if I am now discharged from my job, that they welcome me into their homes. And he called all debtors to his lord and spoke to the first one: How much do you owe my lord? He spoke: A hundred casks of oil. And he spoke to him: Take your letter, sit down quickly, and write fifty. Then he spoke to the other: You, however, how much do you owe? He said a hundred bushels of wheat. And he said to him: Take your letter and write eighty. And the lord praised the unrighteous steward, that he had dealt cleverly; for the children of this world are more clever than the children of the light in their generation. And I say to you: Make friends with unrighteous mammon, so that when you fail, they may take you into the eternal dwellings.
Along with its application, this parable—together with several related biblical passages—has been interpreted as sacrum commercium, as “heavenly business,” in which Jesus as the “heavenly storekeeper” takes the debts of people upon himself and then tears up the promissory note and, as mediator between God and humanity, pays ransom for sinful humankind.
The text of our cantata, whose author remains unknown, revolves around sin as debt and the difficulty of debt cancellation. The first three movements avoid any mention of the Sunday Gospel reading. Instead, the librettist begins with a passage from Psalm 143, which prays for divine salvation and guidance: “Herr, erhöre mein Gebet, vernimm mein Flehen um deiner Wahrheit willen, erhöre mich um deiner Gerechtigkeit willen und gehe nicht ins Gericht mit deinem Knechte; denn vor dir ist kein Lebendiger gerecht” (1; Lord, hear my prayer, hear my plea for the sake of your truth, hear me for the sake of your righteousness and do not enter judgment with your servant; since before you no one living shall be justified). The first freely versified movement, a recitative, also takes up the psalter. Psalm 51, David’s plea for atonement, reads: “Verwirf mich nicht von deinem Angesicht und nimm deinen heiligen Geist nicht von mir” (11; Do not cast me away from your countenance and do not take your holy spirit away from me). The cantata text based on the psalm reads:
Mein Gott, verwirf mich nicht,
Indem ich mich in Demut vor dir beuge,
Von deinem Angesicht.
Ich weiß, wie groß dein Zorn und mein Verbrechen ist,
Daß du zugleich ein schneller Zeuge
Und ein gerechter Richter bist.
My God, do not cast me aside
As I bow down before you in humility.
From your countenance
I know how great your fury and my offense is,
That you are at once a swift witness
And a righteous judge.
The ensuing aria indicates that salvation is not yet in sight:
Wie zittern und wanken
Der Sünder Gedanken,
Indem sie sich untereinander verklagen
Und wiederum sich zu entschuldigen wagen.
So wird ein geängstigt Gewissen
Durch eigene Folter zerrissen.
How tremble and waver The sinner’s thoughts
As they accuse one another
And again dare to excuse themselves.
Thus a distressed conscience
Is torn upon its own rack.
This is a paraphrase of a passage from the letter of the Apostle Paul to the Romans 2:15, which speaks of sinners and their “Gedanken, die sich untereinander verklagen oder entschuldigen” (thoughts that accuse or excuse one another). The second recitative text, which alludes to a place in the Epistle of Paul to the Colossians, is the first to mention forgiveness of sin. In the sense of the metaphor of the “heavenly shopkeeper,” the Epistle of Paul reads: “Er . . . hat uns geschenkt alle Sünden und ausgetilgt die Handschrift, so wider uns war, welche durch Satzungen entstand und uns entgegen war, und hat sie aus dem Mittel getan und auf das Kreuz geheftet” (2:13–14; He . . . has forgiven us all our sins and erased the manuscript that was so against us, which arose from statutes and was against us, and took them out of the way and lifted them upon the cross).
Following a theme from the Passion tradition, the cantata poet formulated:
Wohl aber dem, der seinen Bürgen weiß,
Der alle Schuld ersetzet,
So wird die Handschrift ausgetan,
Wenn Jesus sie mit Blute netzet.
Er heftet sie ans Kreuze selber an.
But goodness comes to him who knows his guarantor,
Who redeems all debt.
Thus the note is blotted out
When Jesus wets it with blood.
He lifts it on the cross himself.
And, taking up these words of Jesus, “Make friends with unrighteous mammon,” the ensuing aria text concludes the “shopkeeper” reflections:
Kann ich nur Jesum mir zum Freunde machen,
So gilt der Mammon nichts bei mir.
Ich finde kein Vergnügen hier
Bei dieser eitlen Welt und irdischen Sachen.
If only I can make Jesus my friend,
Mammon will mean nothing to me.
I find no pleasure here
In this vain world and among earthly things.
This strict opposition ignores the possibility of proper use of earthly goods allowed for by the Gospel reading. In conclusion, an end to the crisis of conscience is signaled by a stanza from Johann Rist’s 1641 hymn Jesu, der du meine Seele (Jesus, you who my soul), whose penultimate strophe begins:
Nun ich weiß, du wirst mir stillen
Mein Gewissen, das mich plagt.
Now I know you will calm for me
My conscience, which torments me.
Bach’s composition is just as diverse and exciting as this source text with its wealth of oppositions. He assigns two contrasting sections to the psalm passage at the very beginning of the opening movement: the imploring “Herr, gehe nicht ins Gericht mit deinem Knecht” develops from a densely chromatic, instrumental Adagio. Anxiously repeated eighth notes connect a weary ascent that shows only minimal gain with a slow descent accompanied by many different sighs before the fervent, elegantly interleaved voices become perceptible. A fugue in quick tempo underscores the almost unassailable “Denn vor dir wird kein Lebendiger gerecht” (For before you no one living shall be justified) with implacable, hammering leaps of the fourth in the theme’s beginning, as well as the apparent immutability of the permutation fugue procedure. A diminuendo to piano and pianissimo shortly before the close persists, together with the softening brought by the return of the theme’s beginning.
The aria for soprano “Wie zittern und wanken der Sünder Gedanken” follows a short alto recitative; it is one of those movements in which Bach characterizes the extraordinary by refusing to rely upon the security of the familiar. The essential bass foundation is omitted, and the viola functions as the deepest voice, a “bassetto”; as a whole, the texture symbolizes the circumstance in which one’s firm stability has been lost. Anxiously repeated tones, slower in the viola/bassetto, faster in the two violins, illustrate the “trembling and wavering” central to the text. The voice and oboe hold a lonely dialogue full of questioning, uncertainty, and anxiety whose outcome remains open, notwithstanding all expressions of pain.
Buoyed by gentle harmonic motion of the strings, security and faith beyond the grave characterize the bass recitative “Wohl aber dem, der seinen Bürgen weiß.” Security and steadfastness also define the ensuing tenor aria “Kann ich nur Jesum mir zum Freunde machen.” With their rock-solid diction, the voice along with the horn ascending to its highest range and the other instruments confront the glistening and seductive virtuoso solo violin; they allow contemptible mammon no quarter. Even so, the trembling of sinners before judgment makes another appearance: the four-part closing chorale on the melody Jesu, der du meine Seele is accompanied by a three-part texture of strings, anxiously repeating the first phrase of the melody. Faithful to the title “Nun ich weiß, du wirst mir stillen” (Now I know you will calm for me), the repeated tones slow from line to line, with sixteenth notes in
4 meter becoming triplets in
8 , then eighths in duple meter, and so forth, until quarter-note motion after the close of the final line of the chorale grants a restful conclusion. Even in this section’s serene chromaticism, however, one hears the hopeless situation at the cantata’s beginning recalled.