8 When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine house, if any man fall from thence.
[AD 253] Origen of Alexandria on Deuteronomy 22:8
When you build a house, you do not quit before building the protective parapet of the house. It is this parapet that prevents one who has ascended onto the house from falling. So it is with the house of the Word. Consequently those who fall because of unfinished buildings fall only from houses which lack the parapet. Those architects and builders bear the blame for such slaughters and falls.

[AD 1781] Richard Challoner on Deuteronomy 22:8
Battlement: This precaution was necessary, because all their houses had flat tops, and it was usual to walk and to converse together upon them.