Under Gods Command
The Death of Abimelech
Judges 9:50-55 Next Abimelech went to Thebez and besieged it and captured it. Inside the city, however, was a strong tower, to which all the men and women-all the people of the city-fled. They locked themselves in and climbed up on the tower roof. Abimelech went to the tower and stormed it. But as he approached the entrance to the tower to set it on fire, a woman dropped a millstone on his head and cracked his skull. Hurriedly he called to his armor-bearer, “Draw your sword and kill me, so that they can’t say, ‘A women killed him’ “So his servant ran him through, and he died. When the Israelites saw that Abimelech was dead, they went home.
In times of battle, women were sometimes asked to join the men at the city wall to drop heavy objects on the soldiers below. A millstone would have been an ideal object for this purpose. It was a round stone about 18 inches in diameter with a hole in the center. Millstones were used to grind grain into flour. The grain was placed between to millstones. The top millstone was turned, crushing the grain. Abimelech’s death was especially humiliating: he was killed by a woman, not by fighting; and he was killed by a farm implement instead of a weapon. Abimelech therefore asked his armor-bearer to stab him with his sword before he died from the flow of the millstone.
Under Gods command 