Judges 9:50

"Then went Abimelech to Thebez, and encamped against Thebez, and took it. But there was a strong tower within the city, and thither fled all the men and women, and all they of the city, and shut themselves in, and gat them to the roof of the tower. And Abimelech came unto the tower, and fought against it, and drew near unto the door of the tower to burn it with fire. And a certain woman cast an upper millstone upon Abimelech's head, and brake his skull. Then he called hastily unto the young man his armor-bearer, and said unto him, Draw thy sword, and kill me, that men say not of me, A woman slew him. And his young man thrust him through, and he died. An when the men of Israel saw that Abimelech was dead, they departed every man unto his place. Thus God requited the wickedness of Abimelech, which he did unto his father, in slaying his seventy brethren; and all the wickedness of the men of Shechem did God requite upon their heads: and upon them came the curse of Jotham the son of Jerubbaal."

"Thebez" (Judges 9:50). "This place was about six miles northeast of Shechem. It had a late Bronze-Age Canaanite stronghold in the area."[25]

"A ... woman cast an upper millstone" (Judges 9:53). Armerding called this: "A massive stone carried to the roof for that purpose."[26] However, he and other commentators who insist that the woman could not have "thrown" so large a stone and therefore must have "dropped it" upon Abimelech, have evidently overlooked the fact that there were two types of millstones: (1) There was the large one, called, "the millstone drawn by an ass" (Matthew 18:6); and (2) there was the "upper stone" held in the hands of the women grinders who milled the corn in those ordinary hand mills like those used by the North American Indians. For years, this writer had one of these in his office, and that "upper millstone" weighed only four or five pounds and might easily have been cast by any strong woman from the top of a tower.

Therefore we must reject the efforts of Boling to "correct" God's Word in this place, insisting that, "This is hyperbole. She must have `dropped it,' and probably had help, as a single individual could hardly manage to throw one (an `upper millstone')."[27]

Campbell had a more accurate understanding of what is said here: "This upper millstone was probably a handstone averaging ten to fourteen inches in length and weighing approximately five pounds."[28]

"Upon their heads ... came the curse of Jotham" (Judges 9:57). Very well, how is it that the woman's casting a stone off the roof of the tower upon Abimelech near the door of the tower in Thebez - how can this be interpreted as, `the fire coming out of Shechem and devouring Abimelech?'? It was the very behavior that Abimelech had exhibited at Shechem where he burned the tower, and which routine he was in the process of repeating at Thebez, that resulted in his own death. Besides that, Thebez was obviously an ally of Shechem and was virtually a part of it, being only six miles away from it. This prophecy of Jotham, uttered in the form of a curse, was most circumstantially fulfilled.