“The Solid Rock”

One of the oldest tunes in our library is an arrangement of the classic hymn, “The Solid Rock.”

The original hymn was written by Edward Mote, a British cabinetmaker who later became a Baptist pastor. Mote grew up in a poor, non-religious home. For whatever reason, his parents would not allow a Bible in their home. Mote later said he was so ignorant of religion as a child that he “did not know there was a God.” He left the home as an adult, studying to be a carpenter. Eventually, he managed to become the owner of his own carpentry business. How he was drawn to Christianity is not documented but as a young adult, he came to Christian faith and became deeply devoted to hymn writing.

The refrain, or what we might call the chorus, came to him while he was walking to work around 1834. By the end of the day, he had written several verses. He originally called his composition “Gracious Experience of a Christian.” On an occasion, Mote visited a sick woman with her husband at their request. The couple had a regular practice of singing a hymn, reading a selection from the Bible and saying a prayer before going to church. They wanted to sing a hymn but did not have a hymnal, so Mote pulled what he had written from his pocket and they sang it together. They couple asked him if they could keep the paper on which he had written the first part of the hymn and Mote complied. Mote was inspired to keep working on it and later completed additional verses.

The theme of the hymn focuses on the idea that a Christian’s hope rests entirely on Christ rather than personal feelings, achievements, circumstances, or religious performance. The possible inspiration for it in Mote’s experience is like Jesus’ parable of the wise and foolish builders in His Sermon on the Mount discourse, where the wise man builds his house on rock while the foolish man builds on sand. The parable is found twice in the gospels of the Bible. Below is the scripture reference from Matthew 7: 24-27 as it appears in the English Standard Version (ESV);

²⁴ “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. ²⁵ And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. ²⁶ And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. ²⁷ And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

Mote eventually left his carpentry business and became a minister. He served as pastor of a Baptist congregation in Sussex, Englad for 21 years.

As noted above, the words were written in the 1830s, and the tune most often heard today was composed later by William B. Bradbury and published in the 1860s. Bradbury’s melody helped make the hymn famous throughout the English-speaking world.

Bradbury was an American businessman, composer and musician who wrote some melodies that became the standard hymn tunes for worship songs still sung today.

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“To God be the glory.”