service was held on 4 February 1708 in the Marienkirche, the town's largest church. The score indicates that Bach deployed his musicians in different locations in the building. He composed another cantata for the occasion the following year, but it is lost. Theme The text centres on Psalm 74, with additional material drawn from the 2 Samuel, Genesis, and Deuteronomy. Unusual for Bach's early cantatas, some contemporary unknown poet added free text that makes reference to the "new regiment" of office bearers and the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Germany, Joseph I, as Mühlhausen was an Imperial free city, thus subject immediately to the emperor. There are three quotations from Psalm 74 (): Verse 12: "" ("God is my Sovereign since ancient days, who all salvation brings which on earth may be found." – ASV version: "Yet God is my King of old, Working salvation in the midst of the earth.") Verses 16–17: "" ("Day and night are Yours. You have seen to it that both sun and planets have their certain courses. You set borders to every land." – ASV: "The day is thine, the night also is thine: Thou hast prepared the light and the sun. Thou hast set all the borders of the earth.") Verse 19: "" ("You would not give the soul of Your turtledove to the enemy." – ASV: "Oh deliver not the soul of thy turtle-dove unto the wild beast.") It has been suggested that these themes include a number of distinct allusions of relevance to the inhabitants of Mühlhausen. First, the reference to Psalm 74 in general, and the inclusion of verse 19 in the cantata may be making an oblique reference, accessible to contemporary audiences, to the fire of May 1707 which had destroyed parts of the city. The importance of "borders" may be an allusion to the threat to the city's independence posed by the military campaigns of Charles XII. Movement 2 combines three texts, two biblical verses and stanza 6 from Johann Heermann's hymn "", which all make reference to old age. An older view suggested this was likely a reference to the septuagenarian Conrad Meckbach, a member of the city council who was connected to Bach. More recent research lead to thinking that it likely refers to Adolf Strecker, the former mayor who had just left office aged 83 years, since "details of his public and private life