roofs

The usually horizontal covering of rooms or buildings. Simple roof construction usually comprised a horizontal bed of branches or beams, sometimes supported by columns, on which layers of earth or limestone plaster were laid. They weathered in the rainy season and needed to be restored in dry weather. Building roofs served primarily to give shade, to keep out rain or other foul weather, and to support a variety of activities carried out on rooftops, from sleeping to storage to sounding alarms. The law required that parapets be built around roofs to reduce the hazard of falling (Deut 22:8). Roofs provided storage as well as a hiding space (Josh 2:6-8), a room usable as a latrine (Judg 3:20-25), or an observation platform (Judg 16:27). From his roof David saw Bathsheba’s bath (2Sam 11:2), and a roof was used for a guest room for Elisha (2Kgs 4:10). The palace roof was suitable for various shrines to foreign gods (2Kgs 23:12), and a house roof could serve as a platform from which to lower a sick man’s bed to a room inside (Mark 2:4; Luke 5:19). Roofs needed regular restoration (Eccl 10:18).