The Bach scholar Andreas Glöckner argued in 1988 that the cantata may have been composed in Arnstadt. The scholar Hans-Joachim Schulze identified in 2010 a remarkable acrostic in the concluding four movements (which he described in the 2010 "Bach-Jahrbuch", the journal of the Neue Bachgesellschaft). Adjusting for transposition errors by the copyist, the initial letters should spell DOKTOR CONRAD MECKBACH and plausibly therefore the work was composed to mark this Mühlhausen councillor's 70th birthday in April 1707. On this basis the cantata may date from Bach's time in Arnstadt. Possibly the cantata was heard a few weeks later after the end of Lent, and thus it may have formed a test-piece for the Mühlhausen appointment, composed in Arnstadt with Bach's supporter Meckbach in mind.