In the inner movements, sung by three soloists, Bach depicts in word painting terms such as flood, waves and fury. The hymn tune is played by instruments, freeing the soprano to interact with the lower voices. Ten years later, Bach wrote an advanced unusual chorale fantasia as the first section of it, combining elements of a motet with complex counterpoint. The text was possibly prepared already at that time. In 1725, Easter had been early and therefore no fourth Sunday after Epiphany happened. Its text paraphrases Psalm 124, focussing on the thought that the believers' life depends on God's help and is lost without it.īach composed the cantata as a late addition to his chorale cantata cycle of 1724/25.

The cantata, in Bach's chorale cantata format, is based on Martin Luther's hymn ' Wär Gott nicht mit uns diese Zeit'. Johann Sebastian Bach composed the church cantata Wär Gott nicht mit uns diese Zeit (Were God not with us at this time), BWV 14, in Leipzig in 1735 for the fourth Sunday after Epiphany and first performed it on 30 January 1735, a few weeks after his Christmas Oratorio.

Gott mit uns translate