ii. Straf mich nicht in deinem Zorn. [Psalm vi.] Of the origin of this hymn, J. C. Wetzel, i. 46, and ii. 404, relates what seems rather an apocryphal story to this effect:—
Johann Rosenmuller, while music director at Leipzig, had been guilty of improper practices with some of his scholars. He was thrown into prison, but having made his escape, went to Hamburg. Thence he sent a petition for restoration to the Elector Johann Georg at Dresden, and to support his petition enclosed this hymn, which Albinus had written for him, along with the beautiful melody by himself (in the Irish Church Hymnal, 1876; called Nassau, in the Darmstadt Gesang-Buch 1698, p. 49).
This, if correct, would date it about 1655, and Koch, iii. 398, says it was printed separately in that year; The earliest hymn-book in which it is found is Luppius's Andachtig Singender Christen Mund, Wesel., 1692, p. 20. It is a beautiful hymn of Penitence (by Miss Winkworth assigned to Ash Wednesday). Included as No. 273 in Freylinghausen's Gesang-Buch, 1704, and recently as No. 535 in the Berlin Geistliche Liedersegen, ed. 1863, in 7 stanzas of 8 lines. The translations in common use are:—
4. Cast me not in wrath away. A translation of stanzas i.—iii., vii., by E. Cronenwett, as No. 235 in the Ohio Lutheran Hymnal, 1880.
-- Excerpts from John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
