And they were more than forty which had made this conspiracy.
Ver. 13. And they were more than forty] The assassins are a kind of most desperate men among the Mahometans, who, strongly deluded with the blind zeal of their superstition, and accounting it meritorious by any means to kill any great enemy of their religion, for the performance thereof, as men prodigal of their lives, they desperately adventure themselves into all kinds of dangers. Such also are the Spahyels among the Turks, a kind of voluntary horsemen in mere devotion to gain paradise by dying for the Mahometan's cause. (Blount's Voyage.)