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Bible Lexicons
Old Testament Hebrew Lexical Dictionary Hebrew Lexicon
Strong's #3774 - כְּרֵתִי
- Brown-Driver-Briggs
- Strong
- Cherethites = "executioners"
- a group of foreign mercenary soldiers serving as a bodyguard for king David; also executioners
- either Cretans or proto-Philistines (in general)
- Book
- Word
did not use
this Strong's Number
כֶּשֶׂב, כִּשְׂבָּה see כֶבֶשׂ etc.
כְּרֵתִי m.
(1) a Cherethite, an executioner (see the root כָּרַת No. 1, 1 Samuel 5:4), only found in the phrase הַכְּרֵתִי וְהַפְּלֵתִי 2 Samuel 8:18, 15:18 20:7, 23 2 Samuel 20:23 (collect.) executioners and runners, a name borne by the guards of king David, whose office it was both to inflict capital punishments, and to convey the king’s mandates as quickly as possible to those who held places of government (compare כָּרִי, טַבָּח, אִגֶּרֶת). See 1 Kings 2:25, 36 1 Kings 2:36, 46 1 Kings 2:46 comp. Daniel 2:14.
(2) [Cherethites], a Gentile name, i.q. Philistine, especially used of the inhabitants of the southern part of Philistia, 1 Samuel 30:14; Ezekiel 25:16; Zephaniah 2:5. LXX. and the Syr. render it Cretans, whence by a comparison with the passages, Amos 9:7; Jeremiah 47:4; Deuteronomy 2:23, it is not amiss to conjecture that the Philistines had their origin from Crete, and that כַּפְתֹּר signifies that island; see that word. Others suppose כְּרֵתִי to be so called from כָּרַת to be expelled from one’s country (Zechariah 14:2), so that it would be the same as Ἀλλόφυλος, by which word פְּלִשְׁתִּי is rendered by the LXX. [in some parts of the O.T.]