“And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay.”
Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on — the action of digging through the roof is more violent than the image of gentle tile-removal sometimes suggests. Palestinian houses of the period had flat roofs of earth and branches; making an opening required real physical effort and created real mess. The crowd inside the house would have experienced soil and debris falling as the opening was made. The determination of the four men to reach Jesus for their friend is absolute: no obstacle, not even the physical barrier of a crowded house, is sufficient to stop them.
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