a house's flat roof, treated as usable space: the level surface on top that people climbed up to, stood on, and called out from.
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
An ordinary house in this period had a flat roof with a low wall around the edge and a stairway on the outside, so the roof worked as one more room of the house. Grain and figs were dried up there, people slept there in hot weather, and anyone who wanted air or quiet went up. This word names that surface as a place to be, not the covering considered as shelter; the word for the roof as the thing over your head that keeps out the weather is a different one (στέγη).
Because the roof was reached from outside and stood above everything around it, four practical facts follow, and every use of the word in the New Testament depends on one of them:
Someone already up there could get away without setting foot inside the house again, which is the whole point of the warning about the day of crisis.
Someone could also come at the house from above, breaking the roof open to reach the room below, as the friends of the paralyzed man do.
Someone could go up to be alone above the noise of the household, as Peter does when he goes to pray.
Someone standing up there was in plain view and easy earshot of the whole neighborhood, so shouting from the roofs meant going completely public.
One more thing worth knowing: in older Greek poetry this word usually meant the house or the great hall itself, not its roof. The narrowing to "roof" comes from the Greek translation of the Old Testament, which used this word for the Hebrew word for a flat roof (גָּג), and the New Testament writers simply kept that usage.
Nuances
1athe flat roof someone is standing on, reached by steps outside the house, so a person up there can leave without going back down through the rooms
Mat 24:17Mrk 13:15Luk 17:31
1bthe roof as a way into the house from above, opened up to reach the room below
Luk 5:19
1cthe roof as a quiet place above the household, where a person goes to be alone
Act 10:9
1dthe roofs of a town as its most public place, where words are called out for everyone to hear
the Greek is the plain, everyday term for the top of a house, the kind of word anyone would use in conversation.Mat 10:27
Both
both name the top of an ordinary home rather than the top of a public building.Luk 12:3
Only housetop
English "housetop" now survives mostly in older Bibles and Christmas songs, so it can sound quaint or archaic where the Greek was ordinary and current.
the Greek names a flat surface people could walk on, sleep on, and pray on, reached by steps on the outside of the house.Act 10:9Mat 24:17
Both
both name the top of a house, the part above the rooms where people live.Luk 5:19
Only roof
English "roof" calls up a sloped cover overhead that nobody stands on, which hides the fact that this was usable space and makes the Gospel scenes hard to picture.
“rooftop”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How dōma differs from similar Greek words
στέγηthe roof as the covering overhead that keeps out the weather. Mark tells the story of the paralyzed man with this word, describing a roof that gets dug through, while Luke tells it with the flat surface people stand on.
This is the roof as a stage over the street. Jesus tells the disciples that what he says to them in the dark, and what people mutter behind closed doors, is to be announced from up there where the whole neighborhood can hear it.Mat 10:27Luk 12:3
It names a surface people climb up onto and use as an extra room. Peter goes up there alone around midday to pray, and the friends of the paralyzed man get up onto it before they lower him through the tiles.Act 10:9Luk 5:19
Because it is a place you are already standing on, it works as a way out. In the warnings about the coming crisis, whoever is up there is told not to climb back down inside for his belongings but to get away straight from the roof.Mat 24:17Mrk 13:15Luk 17:31
Both
Both name the roof of an ordinary house, and one and the same event can be told with either word. Luke has the men go up onto the roof of the crowded house, while Mark has them open the roof of it, and no reader would notice a change of subject.Luk 5:19Mrk 2:4
Both assume the flat roof of houses in that part of the world rather than a steep peak: solid enough that a person stands on it and flees across it, yet soft enough that hands can dig an opening through it.Mat 24:17Mrk 2:4
This is the covering seen from underneath, and it stands for the household it shelters. The officer says he is not worthy to have Jesus come under his roof, meaning into his home and under his hospitality, and Luke tells the same scene the same way.Mat 8:8Luk 7:6
Being the covering itself, it is the thing that gets taken apart. Mark says the friends uncovered it and dug an opening through it, treating the roof as a barrier of packed material between them and the crowded room below.Mrk 2:4
ὑπερῷονthe upper room: a walled, enclosed room built on top of a house, rather than the open roof surface itself.
This word is the flat roof itself, out in the open where anyone below can see and hear whoever stands on it, so Jesus uses it as the picture of a public platform: what was whispered behind closed doors gets announced from up here.Mat 10:27Luk 12:3
Because the roof sits on top of the house and is reached from the outside, a person standing there is already partway out the door, which is why the warning about sudden flight tells such a person not to climb back down for belongings.Mat 24:17Mrk 13:15Luk 17:31
It is a working surface that can be pulled apart from above: the friends of the paralyzed man open it up and lower him through it into the crowded room below.Luk 5:19
Both
Both name the upper part of an ordinary house, so the text speaks of going up to reach either one and of coming down again to leave it.Mat 24:17Act 1:13
Both give a household somewhere set apart from its busy ground floor, and each turns up in Acts as the place someone withdraws to in order to pray or to wait with others: Peter goes up on one at noon, while the disciples gather in the other.Act 10:9Act 1:13
This word is an enclosed room upstairs where people can settle in and stay for a while, which is how the first believers are described after Jesus is taken up: they are lodging in one.Act 1:13
It is a room you can carry a person into and stand around in: Tabitha's body is laid out there, and the widows are inside weeping beside her when Peter arrives.Act 9:37Act 9:39
It holds a whole company for a long evening meeting indoors, with many lamps burning against the dark.Act 20:8
οἰκίαthe house as a dwelling with rooms and belongings in it. In the warning about the day of crisis the roof is deliberately set against going back down into the house.
Names only the flat roof on top of a house, the open platform you climb up onto, never the building or the people under it.Act 10:9Luk 5:19
Because the roof is out in the open and in view of the whole neighborhood, it stands for making something public: what was whispered indoors is shouted from up here for everyone to hear.Mat 10:27Luk 12:3
It is a way in and out that bypasses the door: the friends of the paralyzed man went up onto it and lowered him through the tiles.Luk 5:19
Both
Both belong to one ordinary family dwelling, the roof above and the rooms below, so the same house can be named either way: in the warning about sudden flight, whoever is caught on the roof must not climb down to fetch anything from inside.Mat 24:17Mrk 13:15Luk 17:31
Names the building itself as a structure that gets built, stands, or falls, so it can be founded on rock or on sand and be tested by the storm.Mat 7:24Mat 7:27Luk 6:48
Stands for the people who live together in it, the household as a single unit that can be split by feuding or greeted as a whole.Mat 12:25Mrk 3:25Mat 10:12
Names the indoor space you are welcomed into and hosted in, where guests recline at the table and a meal is served.Mat 26:6Mrk 14:3Luk 7:37
Counts as property that can be owned, given up, or stolen: houses left behind for the sake of Jesus, or swallowed up by men who prey on widows.Mat 19:29Mrk 10:30Mrk 12:40
dōma in the other biblical languages
גָּגHebrew“roof”the Hebrew word for a house's flat roof, which the Greek translation of the Old Testament regularly renders with this word.
The housetop as a platform for public proclamation: what is heard in private is to be shouted from the roof for everyone to hear (Matthew 10:27,Luke 12:3).Mat 10:27Luk 12:3
A private raised place to go up and pray, apart from the household below (Acts 10:9).Act 10:9
Both
Both name the flat roof of a house as usable space one climbs onto and can flee across (Hebrew: Rahab hid the spies on the roof, Joshua 2:6; Greek: whoever is on the housetop must flee without going down, Matthew 24:17).Jos 2:6Mat 24:17
Reaches beyond a house to name the flat top of the incense altar, its gold-overlaid upper surface (Exodus 30:3,Exodus 37:26).Exo 30:3Exo 37:26
The rooftop as the stage of Old Testament life and its dangers: a place of refuge and sleep (2 Samuel 11:2), of forbidden worship of the stars (Jeremiah 19:13), and so hedged by the law requiring a parapet against falls (Deuteronomy 22:8).2Sa 11:2Jer 19:13Deu 22:8
What scholars say about dōma
The lexicons agree on the sense: in the New Testament δῶμα denotes the flat roof of a house, normally reached by an external stair, and BDAG notes its use both as a place of retreat and, in the plural with ἐπί, in the idiom of public proclamation (Matt 10:27;Luke 12:3), which reflects Semitic usage. LSJ documents the older and much wider classical range, where δῶμα is chiefly poetic for a house, a dwelling, or its principal hall (so already Homer); the restriction to "roof" is a Septuagintal development in which δῶμα regularly renders Hebrew גָּג, and the New Testament follows that usage. Commentators discuss the architectural detail in Luke 5:19, where Luke's διὰ τῶν κεράμων ("through the tiles") differs from Mark 2:4's ἀπεστέγασαν τὴν στέγην ("they unroofed the roof"); Marshall and Fitzmyer weigh whether Luke has recast the scene for readers who knew tiled Greco-Roman roofs or whether tiled roofing is presupposed, without this affecting the lexical value of δῶμα itself.