Johann Rist (1607–67) wrote this post-Communion meditation in 1651, two years after the Thirty Years’ War ended. He had watched his town of Wedel (near Hamburg) be destroyed in 1643, losing even his musical instruments, and described his hymns as forged in the “fire of tribulation and the school of the cross.” His original nine stanzas each ran twelve lines; Catherine Winkworth translated eight in 1858, but when the General Council published its Church Book in 1868, editors “chopped off the last third of each stanza,” producing the four-stanza form standard in American Lutheran hymnals today. The tune ACH GOTT VOM HIMMELREICHE was arranged by Michael Praetorius in 1609 from a secular English lute song by Thomas Campion, “I care not for these ladies.” Throughout the text, the Lord is the active subject: He leads, He feeds, and He guarantees that the one who receives this living bread shall not die.