‘And they come, bringing to him a man sick of paralysis, carried by four men. And when they could not come near to him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where he was, and when they had broken it up they let down the mattress on which the paralysed man lay.'
When the four men saw that they could not approach Jesus they were not to be defeated, for they were confident that Jesus could and would help them. So when they saw that the great crowd prevented any approach to the house they went up the stone steps on the outside of the back wall of the house which would lead up to the roof, taking the man with them. (Further reminiscence of the eyewitness). It probably took some manoeuvring for they would not want to spill the man out of the mattress, but seemingly they achieved it successfully. Then they broke open the roof of the house and lowered the man down.
This would be a typical small town house. It would probably be a one storey house and would have stone steps round the back which gave access to the roof, which would be flat. This flat roof would have a balustrade round it as required by the Law (Deuteronomy 22:8). It was a place where those who lived in the house could go for comparative quiet and privacy. The roof would be made of beams and rafters set slightly apart, and covered with either mud or tiles. In the case of a mud roof it would be covered with matting, brushwood, branches and twigs, followed by a final covering of mud which would then be trodden hard. The result was a waterproof roof, but not one able to thwart the attempts of four determined men to break it open, and as long as the beams were not harmed it would be easy and cheap to repair again. On the other hand Luke mentions ‘tiles' so that if this is taken literally this particular house would have a tiled roof, a type certainly known by New Testament times. In that case breaking through the roof would simply involve the removal of the tiles.
‘Mattress.' The word used by Mark indicates a poor man's bedding.