5:17-26 How many are there in our assemblies, where the gospel is preached, who do not sit under the word, but sit by! It is to them as a tale that is told them, not as a message that is sent to them. Observe the duties taught and recommended to us by the history of the paralytic. In applying to Christ, we must be very pressing and urgent; that is an evidence of faith, and is very pleasing to Christ, and prevailing with him. Give us, Lord, the same kind of faith with respect to thy ability and willingness to heal our souls. Give us to desire the pardon of sin more than any earthly blessing, or life itself. Enable us to believe thy power to forgive sins; then will our souls cheerfully arise and go where thou pleasest.

Verses 18, 19. - And, behold, men brought in a bed a man which was taken with a palsy: and they sought means to bring him in, and to lay him before him. And when they could not find by what way they might bring him in because of the multitude, they went upon the house-top, and let him down through the tiling with his couch into the midst before Jesus. So far there was nothing very unusual in the incident. These healings must have been of common occurrence with our Lord. The poor sufferer and his friends, intensely anxious for an interview with One whom they justly regarded as the great Physician, were rightly confident that they had but to see the Master, to state their case, and to receive the blessing which they sought. On this occasion it seemed impossible to get at the merciful Healer. Now or never, they thought. He might, as he had done before, withdraw himself. The chance might never recur. So they accomplished their purpose in the way narrated by the evangelist. It was evidently nothing very extraordinary - an ingenious device, nothing more; only by it the friends of the sufferer showed that they were intensely in earnest, that they were confident that the Master had both the power and the will to do what they wanted, Much has been written on the device employed on this occasion by the friends of the paralytic. Delitzsch, in his 'A Day at Capernaum,' graphically describes what must have taken place. Two bearers ascend the roof by a ladder, and by means of cords they draw up by the same way the sick man after them, assisted by two other bearers. In the middle of the terrace was a square place, open in summer to give light and air to the house, but closed with tiles during the rainy season. Having opened this passage, the bearers let down the sick man into the large inner court immediately below, where Jesus was teaching, near the cistern fixed as usual in this court. The trap-stairs, which led down from the terrace into the court, would have been too narrow for their use, and would not have taken them into the court, but into the apartments which overlooked it from all sides.

And behold, men brought in a bed a man which was taken with a palsy,.... Four men brought him, as Mark says, Mark 2:3 and which the Ethiopic version expresses here: "and they sought means to bring him in": into the house where Jesus was:

and to lay him before him; at his feet, in hope of moving his compassion, and to obtain a cure of him: of the nature of this disease, and of the sort which this man's seems to be; see Gill on Mark 2:3.

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