And a certain woman cast a piece of a millstone upon Abimelech's head, and broke his skull.
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Basil the Great
AD 379
The homicide Abimelech, bastard son of Gideon, killed the seventy legitimate sons, and, thinking he had hit upon a ruse for securing his grasp on the royal power, he destroyed his accomplices in the crime. He, however, was in turn destroyed by them and in the end was slain with a stone cast by a woman’s hand.… In short, countless examples teach us that the profit of human wisdom is illusory, for it is a meager and lowly thing and not a great and preeminent good. - "On Humility"
Above, or "of the upper millstone "according to the Hebrew and Septuagint. Pyrrhus met with a similar fate at Argos. Plutarch observes, (in Scylla) that the Lacedemonians did not like to attack walls, because the bravest men are there often slain by the greatest cowards. (Calmet)
Hence Joab puts this advice in the mouth of David, that it is imprudent to come too near the walls, 2 Kings xi. 21.
Skull, (cerebrum) "brain. "Yet the tyrant's understanding was not perhaps so much impaired, as to excuse him for commanding his armour-bearer to kill him. (Menochius)
