John Gill Commentary Mark 2

And again he entered into Capernaum after some days
After he had been preaching in the synagogues throughout Galilee, and after he had spent some days in prayer, and private retirement in desert places: and it was noised that he was in, the house; a report was spread throughout the city that he was in the house of Simon and Andrew, where he was before, and where he used to be when in Capernaum.

And straightway many were gathered together
From all parts of the city,

insomuch that there was no room to receive them ;
in the house: by which it should seem to be a large one, though not large enough to hold such a numerous company as were got together:

no, not so much as about the door ;
or the places before the door, the porch, the court, or courtyard. The crowd was so great, that neither the house, nor the out places before, could hold them, nor could they come even near the door;

and he preached the word unto them .
The Ethiopic version renders it, "he spoke his own word to them that came to him"; he preached the Gospel, the word of grace and truth, of life and salvation, to as many as could come near him, and were within the hearing of him. To me it seems, that our Lord went up into an upper room, and out of the window preached to the people, that were, in great numbers, without doors; and the following narrative seems to confirm this conjecture.

And they came unto him
A considerable body of people, townsmen, friends, and relations of the person after mentioned:

bringing one sick of the palsy, which was borne of four ;
carried by four men upon their shoulders, as if he was a dead carcass; so weak and enfeebled was he by his disease, that he could not walk, or be otherwise brought; or rather upon a bed, which four men, at the four comers of it, carried in their hands; and so the Ethiopic version renders it, "four men carried him on a bed"; and certain it is, by what follows, that he was brought upon a bed. This man's case appears to be a very bad one, and what seems to be incurable by the art of medicine:

it was not a slight touch of the palsy, but a general one, which had deprived him of motion and sensation. The palsy is a disease, by which the body, or some of its parts, lose their motion, and sometimes their sensation or feeling: the causes of it are an impeded influx of the nervous spirits into the villi, or the muscles, or of the arterial blood into their vessels; which may happen from some fault either in the brain, the nerves, muscles, or their vessels. The palsy is said to be "perfect", or complete, when there is a privation of motion and sensation at the same time; "imperfect", when one of the two is destroyed, the other remaining. The palsy again is either "universal, lateral", or "partial". The "universal" palsy, called also "paraplegia", or "paraplexia", is a general immobility of all the muscles that receive nerves from the cerebrum, or cerebellum, except those of the head--its cause is usually supposed to reside in the ventricles of the brain, or in the root of the spinal marrow.--The "lateral" palsy, called also "hemiplegia", is the same disease with the "paraplegia", only that it affects but one side of the body. Its cause is the same, only restrained to one side of the brain, or spinal marrow. The "partial" palsy is where some particular part, or member, alone is affected; as, for instance, where the motion of the arm, or leg, is destroyed ^{z}.

Now this man's disease seems to be the perfect and general palsy, which affects the whole body, or the "paraplegia", which reaches every part but the head; by which all sense, as well as motion, is destroyed, and sometimes only one of them: but in this case it seems as if both of them were lost: that he was motionless, is clear from his being carried by four persons; and it looks as if he had lost his feeling, since he is not said to be grievously tormented, as the centurion's servant is said to be, (Matthew 8:6) , whose disease seems to have been of the partial or imperfect kind; or however, though it deprived him of motion, yet not of sensation; his might be a kind of scorbutic palsy.

This man is an emblem of a sinner in a state of nature, who is insensible of his condition, of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, of his danger and misery to which he is exposed, of his lost and undone state, of the necessity of the new birth, and of the need of salvation by Jesus Christ; and who, as he is destitute of spiritual life, can have no spiritual motion to come to Christ for life and salvation, or any spiritual strength and activity to move in, or perform anything that is spiritually good: and as the friends of this man took him, and brought him to Christ, and laid him down before him, hoping he might receive a cure from him, though from what appears, it was unasked by him, as he did; so it becomes the friends and relations of unregenerate persons, who have received the grace of God themselves, and are in a sound and safe estate, to be concerned for them; to bring them under the means of grace, where they may be brought to a sense of their sins, and to a comfortable view of the free and full forgiveness of them, as this man: and this should be done, even though there may be difficulties in the accomplishment of it, as there were in this case, as is manifest from what follows.

FOOTNOTES:

• F26: Chambers's Cyclopaedia, in the word "palsy".

And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press ,
&c.] To the room where Jesus was, nor into the house, nor even to the door, the crowd about it was so great,

they uncovered the roof where he was .
The Arabic version reads it, "they went up to the roof"; and the Persic thus, "they carried him up upon the roof".

The place where Christ was, seems to be an upper room; for in such an one the Jewish doctors used to meet, and discourse together about religious matters; see (Acts 1:13) (20:8) . Though some think this was a mean house in which Christ was, and had no upper room, but the ground floor was open to the roof, through which the man, sick of the palsy, was let down on his bed to Christ; and the rather, because the people crowded about the door to get in, and there was no room to receive them, no not about it: but even from this circumstance it seems most reasonable, that there was an upper room in which Christ was, and at a window in which he might preach to the people, with much more convenience, than at, or about the door, where they were pressing: for, certain it is, that he did preach the word to them, (Mark 2:2) , and many instances may be given of the above mentioned doctors, whose usages, when indifferent, and not sinful, might be complied with by Christ, as these were, of their meeting and conversing together in upper rooms. Instead of many, take the few following ^F1 :

``It happened to Rabban Gamaliel, and the elders, who were sitting (hyyleb) , "in an upper room in Jericho", that they brought them dates, and they did eat, &c,'' Again <sup>F2</sup> , ``these are some of the traditions which they taught, (tyyleb) , "in the upper chamber" of Hananiah ben Hezekiah, ben Garon.'' So it is likewise said ^F3 , that ``R. Tarphon, or Tryphon, and the elders, were sitting "in the chamber" of the house of Nithzah, in Lydda, and this question was asked before them, is doctrine greatest, or practice greatest?'' Once more <sup>F4</sup> , ``the elders of the house of Shammai, and the elders of the house of Hillell, went up, (tyylel) , "to the upper chamber" of Jochanan ben Bethira, and said, that the Tzitzith, or fringes, had no measure''

Now, over this upper room, was a flat roof, with battlements about it; for so the Jews were obliged to build their houses, (Deuteronomy 22:8) , to which they had a way of going to and from, both within and without side their houses; (See Gill on Matthew 24:17). Hence we so often read ^F5 of (twgg Krd) , "the way of the roofs",

in distinction from (Myxtp Krd) "the way of the doors"; by which they entered into their houses, and by which means, things might be carried from a court to a roof, and from a roof to a court; about which the doctors dispute, saying, that on a sabbath day ^F6 , ``it is forbidden to ascend and descend from the roofs to the court, and from the court to the roofs; and the vessels, whose abode is in the court, it is lawful to move them in the court, and which are in the roofs, it is lawful to move them in the roofs.--Says Rabbi, when we were learning the law with R. Simeon at Tekoah, we brought up oil, and a confection of old wine, water, and balsam, from roof to roof, and from roof to court, and from court to court, and from court to a close, and from one close to another, till we came to the fountains, in which they washed. Says R. Judah, it happened in a time of danger, and we brought the book of the law from court to roof, and from roof to court, and from court to a close, to read in it.''

Now, in these roofs, there was a door, which they call, (twgg xtp) , "the door of the roofs" ^F7 ; now when they had brought up the sick man to the roof of the house, by a ladder fastened on the outside, which was common ^F8 ; they took up this door, and let him down in his bed into the room where Jesus was: and because they wrenched the roof door open with violence, therefore it is said,

and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the
sick of the palsy lay :
opening the door, and perhaps taking up the frame of it, and removing some tiles about it, to make the way wider, they let down with ropes, the bed, and the man on it, together. The Persic version thus renders it, "and the paralytic man being put upon a bed, at the four corners of the bed so many ropes being fastened, they let him down through a window to Jesus, into the place where he was sitting"; which is rather a paraphrase, or exposition of the words, than a translation.

FOOTNOTES:

• F1: T. Bab. Beracot, fol. 37. 1.
• F2: T. Bab. Sabbat, fol. 12. 1. & Misn. Sabbat, c. 1. sect. 4,
• F3: T. Bab. Kiddushin, fol. 40. 2. Vid. T. Hieros. Pesachim, fol. 30. 2. & T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 74. 1.
• F4: T. Bab. Menachot, fol. 41. 2. Vid. Targum in Cant. iii. 4.
• F5: T. Pesach. fol. 92. 1. Moed. Katon, fol. 25. 1. Cetubot, fol. 10. 2. Gittin, fol. 81. 1. Bava Metzia, fol. 88. 1, in 117. 1.
• F6: T. Bab. Erubin, fol. 91. 1. & Hieros. ib. fol. 25. 3.
• F7: T. Hieros. Erubin, fol. 26. 2.
• F8: Gloss. in T. Bab. Bava Metzia, fol. 117. 1.

When Jesus saw their faith
The faith of the sick man, and his friends, who seemed confident, that could they get at Christ, a cure would be wrought: the faith of the one appears in suffering himself to be brought in such a manner, under so much weakness; and with so much trouble; and of the other in bringing him, and breaking through so many difficulties to get him to Christ.

He said unto the sick of the palsy, son, your sins be forgiven you ;pointing and striking at the root of his disorder, his sins. Christ calls him son, though, in this afflicted condition a person may be a child of God, and yet greatly afflicted by him; afflictions are not arguments against, but rather for sonship: "for what son is he whom the Father does not chasten?"

He scourges every son whom he receives, and by chastising them, deals with them as with sons; and those who are without chastisement are bastards, and not sons, (Hebrews 12:6–8) , yes he calls him a son, though a sinful creature, and who had not, as yet, until these words were spoken by Christ, any discovery and application of pardoning grace unto him: he was a son of God by divine predestination, being predestinated to the adoption of children: he was a son by virtue of the covenant of grace, he was interested in, as appears by his enjoying pardon of sin, a blessing of it; which runs thus, "I will be their Father, and they shall be my sons and daughters", (2 Corinthians 6:18) .

He was one of the children which were given to Christ as in such a relation: and for the sake of whom Christ was now a partaker of flesh and blood, and in a little time was to die for them, in order to gather them together, who were scattered abroad. The blessing Christ conferred on this poor man is of the greatest consequence and importance, forgiveness of sin: it is what springs from the grace and mercy of God; it is provided in a promise in the covenant of grace; Christ was sent to shed his blood to procure it, in a way consistent with the holiness and justice of God; and this being done, it is published in the Gospel, and is a most considerable article in it, and than which, nothing can be more desirable to a sensible sinner: and blessed are they that are partakers of it, their sins will never be imputed to them; they will never be remembered more; they are blotted out of God's book of debts; they are covered out of his sight, and are removed as far as the east is from the west, even all their sins, original and actual, secret or open, of omission, or commission; (See Gill on Matthew 9:2).