The particulars in this verse not in Mt., who did not care how they found their way to Jesus; enough for him that they succeeded somehow. προσεγγίσαι (T. R.): here only in N. T. to approach; προσενέγκαι (W.H [8]), to bring near (the sick man understood) to Him, Jesus. ἀπεστέγασαν τ. σ., removed the roof, to which they would get access by an outside stair either from the street or from the court. ὅπου ἦν, where He was; where was that? in an upper room (Lightfoot and Vitringa), or in a room in a one-storied house (Holtz., H. C.), or not in a room at all, but in the atrium or compluvium, the quadrangle of the house (Faber, Archäol., Jahn, Archäol.). In the last-mentioned case they would have to remove the parapet (battlement, Deuteronomy 22:8) and let the man down into the open space. ἐξορύξαντες : not something additional to but explanatory of ἀπεστέγασαν = they unroofed by digging through the material tiles, laths, and plaster. κράβαττον : a small portable couch, for the poor, for travellers, and for sick people; condemned by Phryn., p. 62; σκίμπους the correct word. Latin grabatus, which may have led Mk. to use the term in the text.

[8] Westcott and Hort.

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Old Testament