Mark 2:4

Mark 2:4. Could not come nigh unto him. The doorway was full (Mark 2:2).

They uncovered (unroofed) the roof where he was . Luke says what is here implied: ‘they went upon the housetop,' probably by an outside staircase. That they merely removed the awning from the court is not in accordance with what is added: and when they had broken it up, or ‘dug it out.' Besides Luke explicitly says that the man was let down ‘through the tiling' (tiles). The supposition that the parapet alone was broken through is open to the same objection. It is most probable that our Lord was in the upper room, usually the largest in an Eastern house; that the crowd was in the court, as Mark 2:2 implies, and that these men actually removed the tiles on the roof and broke through the plaster or clay of the roof itself. This was an evidence of their earnest ness.

The bed. A different word from those used by Matthew and Luke. It denotes a mattress, sometimes merely a sheepskin, used for the service of the sick, or as a camp-bed. Of course bedsteads were and are unknown in the East.