a screenshot from Michael Marissen, Lutheranism, anti-Judaism, and Bach’s St. John Passion : with an annotated literal translation of the libretto, p. 29
SOME REMARKS (DW)
Achsaph belongs in the series of evil cities: Sodom, Babylon, Nineve…
Brockes, in his Passion, uses this metaphorical city (once captured by the Israelites) to evoke the image of dreadful pits where one perishes (‘murderous dens’) contrasting with the live-gving hill of Golgatha. Bach removes the baroque flavour of the image: ‘Achsaphs Möderhöhlen’ becomes ‘euren Marterhöhlen’. This is conform the general tendency in the St Matthew Passion (Picander, libretto) in which there is no focus on the external effects (the exception that confirms the general rule: ‘Sind blitze..’) , but on interiorisation.