The Uncovering of the Roof.
“AND they came unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy, which was borne of four. And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was; and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay.” Mark ii, 3, 4. The following remarks from a very excellent work throw considerable light on this interesting incident: “In genuine Arab houses no bedsteads are used, and consequently no rooms are set apart expressly for bedrooms. Mattresses are spread anywhere, in the various rooms and courts, or on the terraces, according to the season, or to the convenience of the moment; and the beds and bedding are rolled up and put away during the day in recesses made for them. Thus, with a pretty good stock of mattresses and lehaffs, a large number of guests may be entertained any night at a moment’s notice. The room was well ventilated by two large square openings, near the ceiling, opposite to each other, one being just over the door, and the other over the recess for the mattresses. This sort of bed could easily have been carried away by the sick man of Capernaum; and if the houses of Capernaum were built like most of the houses of the present day in the towns of Palestine, the uncovering of the roof referred to in the fourth verse of the same chapter, admits of an easy explanation. The inner court of the house is usually more spacious than any of the surrounding rooms, and often there are platforms or benches of stone on each side, spread with carpets and cushions, used as divans during the day and as sleeping places at night. To such a court Christ may have retreated when the crowd increased. We may imagine him there, with the wondering people round him, and the crafty and scornful scribes seated near on the divan—all sheltered from the hot sun by some kind of matting or canvas, supported on a trellis work of tree-branches and planks, more or less secure. When the sick man was carried by his friends to the house where Christ was preaching, ‘they could not come nigh to him for the press,’ so they very naturally went on to the terrace or house-top, and ‘uncovered the roof’ of the court: that is, they removed the matting which sheltered it, and then they ‘broke up’ the trellis work and let down the bed whereon the sick of the palsy lay. If an ordinary house-top had been broken up, the wooden beams, and the masses of earth and stone of which it is composed would, in falling, have endangered the lives of those below.”