Was soll ich aus dir machen, Ephraim, BWV 89
church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach composed the church cantata Was soll ich aus dir machen, Ephraim (What shall I make of you, Ephraim), BWV 89, in Leipzig for the 22nd Sunday after Trinity and first performed it on 24 October 1723.
History and words
Bach wrote the cantata in his first year in Leipzig for the 22nd Sunday after Trinity. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the Epistle to the Philippians, thanks and prayer for the congregation in Philippi (Philippians 1:3–11), and from the Gospel of Matthew, the parable of the unforgiving servant (Matthew 18:23–35).
The unknown poet of the cantata text stressed the opposites of the gospel, God's justice versus unjust men. The text begins with a related quotation from the prophet Hosea, Hosea 11:8. The next two movements, recitative and aria, reflect the sinful condition of man, another set of recitative and aria deals with God's mercy. The closing chorale is stanza 7 of "Wo soll ich fliehen hin" by Johann Heermann (1630), to the melody of "Auf meinen lieben Gott", which Bach would treat completely one year later in his chorale cantata Wo soll ich fliehen hin, BWV 5.
Bach first performed the cantata on 24 October 1723.
Scoring and structure
The cantata in six movements is scored for three vocal soloists (soprano, alto and bass), a four-part choir only in the chorale, horn, two oboes, two violins, viola, and basso continuo.
Aria (bass): Was soll ich aus dir machen, Ephraim
Recitative (alto): Ja, freilich sollte Gott
Aria (alto): Ein unbarmherziges Gerichte
Recitative (soprano): Wohlan!
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Was soll ich aus dir machen, Ephraim, BWV 89” as church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 11, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q1330837. VIAF identifies the subject as 175874528. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1723 and 1630.
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This entry incorporates text from “Was soll ich aus dir machen, Ephraim, BWV 89” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.