Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort

Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort. Martin Luther* (1483-1546). Probably written in 1541, and printed on a broadsheet at Wittenberg in 1542. A Low German version appeared in a Magdeburg Gesang Buch (1542), and it was printed in Geistliche Lieder (Wittenberg, 1544). Originally it had three 4-line stanzas, but in 1543 the title added ‘Mit zweien Gesetzen Vorbessert’ (‘with two laws improved’). Wackernagel prints this five-stanza text (Das Deutsche Kirchenlied III. p. 27) with the note that ‘the two new stanzas [4 and 5] are by Justus Jonas’*. Jenny, Luthers geistliche Lieder, no. 38, therefore omits these stanzas. In 1544 it was entitled ‘Ein Kinderlied, Zu singen wider die zween Erzfeinde...

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