Let him who is on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house:
Read Chapter 24
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Not come down, into the house. They had no occasion, as Mauduit and others seem to suppose, to throw themselves from the roof, for the Jews had usually stairs on the outside of their houses. (Bible de Vence)
The roof is the summit of the house, the noble perfection of the entire dwelling. For one may not even say that a house exists if it does not have a roof. Whoever therefore is established at the summit of his house—that is, in the perfection of his body made new by regeneration, raised high by the Spirit and perfected by the absolution of the divine gift—should not allow himself to be provoked within by bodily enticements and to descend to the sinful desire for the lowly things of this world or fall from the heights of the roof. “And let whoever is in the field not return to retrieve his tunic,” that is, if he is busy fulfilling the commandments, he should not return to his previous cares or desire clothing for this body, lest he restore and wear again the old tunic of sin with which he was once covered.