When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine house, if any man fall from thence.
Thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof. The tops of houses in ancient Judea, as in the East still, were flat, being composed of branches or twigs laid across large beams, and covered with a cement of clay or strong plaster. They were surrounded by a parapet breast high; for, as in summer the roof is a favourite resort for coolness. Accidents would frequently happen from persons incautiously approaching the edge and falling into the street or court; hence, it was a wise and prudent precaution in the Jewish legislator to provide that a stone balustrade or timber railing round the roof should form an essential part of every new house (2 Kings 1:2). The same precaution is still observed (see Rogers' 'Domestic Life in Palestine,' p. 326). But during the Mosaic economy the builder of a house who neglected the erection of a balustrade to the roof subjected himself to the charge of blood-guiltiness, should any one have been accidentally killed by falling from the terrace.