Heinrich Schütz's twenty-nine motets in the 1648 Geistliche Chormusik, op. 11, including this work, demonstrate the composer's return to the German style and a contrapuntal process not dependent on the by-then-widely-accepted basso continuo after decades of composing biblical concertos and histories with obligatory continuo. This church-year-ordered collection was dedicated to the St. Thomas, Leipzig, choir, the conductor of which was Michael Tobias, son of Roger Tobias, Schütz's predecessor as Dresden court Kappelmeister.