‘And behold, men bring on a bed a man who was paralysed, and they sought to bring him in, and to lay him before him, and not finding by what way they might bring him in because of the crowd, they went up to the housetop, and let him down through the tiles, with his couch, into the midst before Jesus.'
While Jesus was speaking some men arrived (Mark tells us that there were four) carrying a litter in which was a paralysed man. But there was no way through the crowd. So the four men, confident that Jesus could and would help them, went up the stone steps on the outside of the house which led up to the roof, taking the man with them. (We have here the reminiscence of an eyewitness). It probably took some manoeuvring for they would not want to spill the man out of the litter, but at last they achieved it. Then they broke open the roof of the house by removing some clay objects (keramos - tiles?) and lowered the man down.
It would be a typical small town house. It would probably be a one storey house and would have stone steps round the back which led on to the roof for access to the roof, which would be flat, but with a balustrade as required by the Law (Deuteronomy 22:8). This was a place where those who lived in the house could go for comparative quiet and privacy. Luke lets us know that the roof was at least partly clay covered (keramos). This may signify clay tiles. Mark does not tell us what the roof consisted of. It was not able to thwart the attempts of four determined men to dig through and break it open. And as long as the beams were not harmed it would be easy and cheap to repair again by replacing the tiles. There were by this time tiled roofs in Galilee.