Cher'ethites
(executioners) and of King David.
2Sa 8:18; 15:18; 20:7,23; 1Ki 1:38,44; 1Ch 18:17
It is plain that these royal guards were employed as executioners.,
and as couriers,
But it has been conjectured that they may have been foreign mercenaries, and therefore probably Philistines, of which name Pelethites may be only another form.
and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was over the Cherethites and the Pelethites, and David's sons were priests.
And all his servants passed by him, and all the Cherethites, and all the Pelethites, and all the six hundred Gittites who had followed him from Gath, passed on before the king.
And there went out after him Joab's men and the Cherethites and the Pelethites, and all the mighty men. They went out from Jerusalem to pursue Sheba the son of Bichri.
Now Joab was in command of all the army of Israel; and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was in command of the Cherethites and the Pelethites;
and King Rehoboam made in their place shields of bronze, and committed them to the hands of the officers of the guard, who kept the door of the king's house.
But in the seventh year Jehoiada sent and brought the captains of the Carites and of the guards, and had them come to him in the house of the LORD. And he made a covenant with them and put them under oath in the house of the LORD, and he showed them the king's son.
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.