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.
[3] 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,[4] but in the Septuagint version of the same passage, the group are described instead as "children of the Cherethites";[3] scholars believe that this is a reference to an alliance of the Philistines as a whole, rather than a subgroup.
[3] 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;[3] 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.
[5] Some Sages interpret it as the Breastplate of the High Priest There is a reasonable possibility that the Carites (mentioned for example at 2 Kings 11:4 and 11:19) were identical to the Cherethites, the former term being a linguistic corruption of the latter.
[3] In the aggadah, the Cherethites are portrayed as being identical to the Sanhedrin, rather than being non-Israelite mercenaries employed by the Israelites; the aggadah argues that Kereti (Hebrew for Cherethites) should be interpreted as being derived from to cut off, in the sense of to make a decree, and thus a reference to making legal decisions.