Judges 16:27. Now the house was full of men and women; and all the lords of the Philistines were there; and there were upon the roof about three thousand men and women, that beheld while Samson made sport.
This building must have been of great size to have gathered on its flat roof three thousand people. The blind Samson probably “made sport” on one side of the enclosed courtyard, where the spectators on the roof and the crowds within could see him at the same time. In Algiers, on occasions of public festivity, the courtyard of the palace is covered with sand for the accommodation of the wrestlers, who are brought there to amuse the crowd. Dr. Shaw says, “I have often seen numbers of people diverted in this manner upon the roof of the dey’s palace at Algiers” (Travels, p. 217).