Bach wrote the cantata to conclude his first Christmas season as Thomaskantor in Leipzig which had been celebrated with five cantatas, four of them new compositions, the Magnificat and a new Sanctus. The text by an anonymous author, who possibly supplied texts of two of the Christmas cantatas as well, combines the prescribed readings for the feast day, the prophecy from the Book of Isaiah and the gospel of Matthew about the Wise Men from the East. The librettist begins with a quotation from the prophecy, comments it by a stanza of the early anonymous Christmas carol "Ein Kind geborn zu Bethlehem", says in a sequence of recitatives and arias that the prophecy was fulfilled in Bethlehem, concluding that the Christian should bring his heart as a gift. The cantata ends with a chorale, stanza 10 of Paul Gerhardt's hymn "Ich hab in Gottes Herz und Sinn".

Original Name Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen
Librettist Isaiah 60:6 (No.1) Anonymous (Nos.2-6) Paul Gerhardt (1607-1676) (No.7)
Date of composition 1724
Premiered 1724, January 6th in Leipzig, Germany
First published 1868 (BGA)
Dedicated to Epiphany
Type Sacred Cantata
Tonality C Major
Catalogue BWV 65
Spoken language German
Instruments 2x Voice
Chorus/Choir
Orchestra
Links
Autotranslations beta Jean-Sébastien Bach: They will all come out of Sheba en do majeur, BWV 65
Johann Sebastian Bach: They will all come out of Sheba in do maggiore, BWV 65
Johann Sebastian Bach: They will all come out of Sheba C-dur, BWV 65