And a certain woman cast a piece of a millstone upon Abimelech's head, and all to brake his skull.
Ver. 53. And a certain woman.] Women have sometimes done singular service against an enemy: as at the siege of Lamia, laid by M. Acilius, the Roman general: a of Coccinum, in the isle of Lemnus, by the Turks, where Marulla, a maiden, fought desperately in defence of her country: b of Buda, where the Hungarian women bestirred them lustily to save the town. c But what monstrous mothers were those Suevian women, who, assisting their husbands in fight against the Romans, under the conduct of Drusus, son-in-law to Augustus Caesar, threw their young children at them instead of darts. d
Cast a piece of a millstone.] So that ambitious King Pyrrhus was at last slain with a tile stone thrown upon his head by a woman. e And the like deadly blow light by a like hand, upon the head of Hermanius Earl of Lucelburg, whom Pope Hildebrand had set up in opposition to Henry the Emperor, whom he had excommunicated. f Simeon De Monteforti also, another of the Pope's champions, fighting against those ancient Protestants the Waldenses, was brained with a stone at the siege of Tholouse. g That scholar that took his death by the falling of a letter of stone from the Earl of Northampton's house at the funeral of Queen Anne, was to be pitied. But commentators observe it for a just hand of God upon Abimelech, that upon one stone he had slain his seventy brethren, and now a stone slayeth him: his head had stolen the crown of Israel, and now his head is smitten.
a Liv., lib. xxxvii.
b Turk. Hist., 413.
c Ibid., 741.
d Heyl., Geog.
e Plutarch.
f Val. Max. Christ.
g Arch. Ussher.