Lobet den Herrn, alle seine Heerscharen, BWV Anh. 5

Lobet den Herrn, alle seine Heerscharen (Praise ye the Lord, all ye of his great armies), BWV Anh 5, is a cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. Consisting of seven movements, it was one of two cantatas which he composed for the twenty-fourth birthday of Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen on 10 December 1718. The librettist was Christian Friedrich Hunold (Menantes). The other cantata, Der Himmel dacht auf Anhalts Ruhm und Glück, BWV 66a, can be reconstructed. The music of Lobet den Herrn, alle seine Heerschare is completely lost, but there has been speculation that Bach could have reused it in another work.

As a congratulatory work Lobet den Herrn, alle seine Heerschare is classed as a secular cantata rather than a church cantata. However, it is described as being intended for performance in connection with a religious service (bey gehaltenem Gottes-Dienste) and the librettist used text from Psalm 119. This makes the work unusual in the context of Bach's output at Köthen. Normally Bach was not expected to provide music for the religious services at court because of Calvinist antipathy towards elaborate music.

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