Cherethites

In the Bible, the Cherethites and Pelethites (Hebrew: כרתי‎‎), the former also spelled Kerethites, are two ethnic groups in the Levant. Their identity has not been determined with certainty. The Cherethites are mentioned independently three times, and as the "Cherethites and Pelethites" seven times. They are interpreted to have been a group of elite mercenaries employed by King David, some of whom acted as his bodyguards, and others as part of his army.

In the masoretic version of the Book of Ezekiel, a group referred to as children of the land league are stated as being allies of Egypt, but in the Septuagint version of the same passage, the group are described instead as children of the Cherethites; scholars believe that this is a reference to an alliance of the Philistines as a whole, rather than a subgroup. The targum, and syriac peshitta, regarding the phrase as an appelative, render it bowmen and slingers, Origen's Hexapla rendered it corrupted people, while comparatively more recently Gesenius proposed that it should be rendered executioners and runners. Most modern scholars, however, do not believe the phrase to be appellative.

The Septuagint translates Cherethite as Cretans, where it occurs in the writings of the literary prophets, paralleling an ancient tradition that the origin of the people living in Roman Palestine (which was named after the Philistines) had also come from Crete; the latter tradition is connected to that which concerns whether the Philistines originated from Caphtor, an ambiguous location that most modern scholars believe was probably identical to Crete.

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