In this cantata, Buxtehude sets a text from Luke 2:29-32. The work is scored for tenor, two violins, and continuo. The work is a sacred concerto in the purest sense of the genre, using the very same principles of composition found in the concertos of the previous generation, such as Schütz's Symphoniae sacrae, or the Kleine geistlich Konzerte. It includes a biblical prose text, and consists of numerous short contrasting sections. Buxtehude takes many opportunities to musically paint individual images embedded in the text. For instance when setting the text, "My eyes have seen the salvation which You prepare for all people," Buxtehude writes a very, very long melisma on the word "all," accentuating that ALL people receive salvation. Or before the phrase, "A light to lighten the heathen," Buxtehude writes a brief passage of slower gloomy music so that the gigue like music he employs for that phrase of text appears yet all the more bright in contrast.

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