2Sa 8:18 | KD | STEP | Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, a very brave hero of Kabzeel (see at 2Sa 23:20.), was over the Crethi and Plethi . Instead of והכּרתי, which gives no sense, and must be connected in some way with 1Ki 1:38, 1Ki 1:44, we must read הכּרתי על according to the parallel passage , and the corresponding text of the Chronicles. The Crethi and Plethi were the king’s body-guard, σωματοφύλακες (Josephus, Ant . vii. 5, 4). The words are adjectives in form, but with a substantive meaning, and were used to indicate a certain rank, lit . the executioners and runners, like השּׁלישׁי ( ). כּרתי, from כּרת, to cut down or exterminate, signifies confessor , because among the Israelites (see at 1Ki 2:25), as in fact throughout the East generally, the royal halberdiers had to execute the sentence of death upon criminals. פּלתי, from פלת (to fly, or be swift), is related to פּלט, and signifies runners . It is equivalent to רץ, a courier, as one portion of the halberdiers, like the ἄγγαροι of the Persians, had to convey the king’s orders to distant places (vid., ). This explanation is confirmed by the fact that the epithet והרצים הכּדי was afterwards applied to the king’s body-guard (2Ki 11:4, 2Ki 11:19), and that הכּרי for הכּרתי occurs as early as 2Sa 20:23. כּרי, from כוּר, fodit, perfodit, is used in the same sense. And David’s sons were כּהנים (“confidants”); not priests, domestic priests, court chaplains, or spiritual advisers, as Gesenius, De Wette, and others maintain, but, as the title is explained in the corresponding text of the Chronicles, when the title had become obsolete, “the first at the hand (or side) of the king.” The correctness of this explanation is placed beyond the reach of doubt by 1Ki 4:5, where the cohen is called, by way of explanation, “the king’s friend.” The title cohen may be explained from the primary signification of the verb כּהן, as shown in the corresponding verb and noun in Arabic (“ res alicujus gerere ,” and “ administrator alieni negotii ”). These cohanim , therefore, were the king’s confidential advisers.

‏ 2 Samuel 8:18

2Sa 8:18 Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, a very brave hero of Kabzeel (see at 2Sa 23:20.), was over the Crethi and Plethi. Instead of והכּרתי, which gives no sense, and must be connected in some way with 1Ki 1:38, 1Ki 1:44, we must read הכּרתי על according to the parallel passage 2Sa 20:23, and the corresponding text of the Chronicles. The Crethi and Plethi were the king’s body-guard, σωματοφύλακες (Josephus, Ant. vii. 5, 4). The words are adjectives in form, but with a substantive meaning, and were used to indicate a certain rank, lit. the executioners and runners, like השּׁלישׁי (2Sa 23:8). כּרתי, from כּרת, to cut down or exterminate, signifies confessor, because among the Israelites (see at 1Ki 2:25), as in fact throughout the East generally, the royal halberdiers had to execute the sentence of death upon criminals. פּלתי, from פלת (to fly, or be swift), is related to פּלט, and signifies runners. It is equivalent to רץ, a courier, as one portion of the halberdiers, like the ἄγγαροι of the Persians, had to convey the king’s orders to distant places (vid., 2Ch 30:6). This explanation is confirmed by the fact that the epithet והרצים הכּדי was afterwards applied to the king’s body-guard (2Ki 11:4, 2Ki 11:19), and that הכּרי for הכּרתי occurs as early as 2Sa 20:23. כּרי, from כוּר, fodit, perfodit, is used in the same sense. ^{▼▼Gesenius (Thes. s. vv.) and Thenius (on 1Ki 1:38) both adopt this explanation; but the majority of the modern theologians decide in favour of Lakemacher’s opinion, to which Ewald has given currency, viz., that the Crethi or Cari are Cretes or Carians, and the Pelethi Philistines (vid., Ewald, Krit. Gramm. p. 297, and Gesch. des Volkes Israel, pp. 330ff.; Bertheau, zur Geschichte Israel, p. 197; Movers, Phönizier i. p. 19). This view is chiefly founded upon the fact that the Philistines are called C'rethi in 1Sa 30:14, and C'rethim in Zep 2:5 and Eze 25:16. But in both the passages from the prophets the name is used with special reference to the meaning of the word הכרית, viz., to exterminate, cut off, as Jerome has shown in the case of Ezekiel by adopting the rendering interficiam interfectores (I will slay the slayers) for את־כּרתים הכרתּי. The same play upon the words takes place in Zephaniah, upon which Strauss has correctly observed: “Zephaniah shows that this violence of theirs had not been forgotten, calling the Philistines Crethim for that very reason, ut sit nomen et omen.” Besides, in both these passages the true name Philistines stands by the side as well, so that the prophets might have used the name Crethim (slayers, exterminators) without thinking at all of 1Sa 30:14. In this passage it is true the name Crethi is applied to a branch of the Philistine people that had settled on the south-west of Philistia, and not to the Philistines generally. The idea that the name of a portion of the royal body-guard was derived from the Cretans is precluded, first of all, by the fact of its combination with הפּלתי (the Pelethites); for it is a totally groundless assumption that this name signifies the Philistines, and is a corruption of פלשׁתּים. There are no such contractions as these to be found in the Semitic languages, as Gesenius observes in his Thesaurus (l.c.), “quis hujusmodi contractionem in linguis Semiticis ferat?” Secondly, it is also precluded by the strangeness of such a combination of two synonymous names to denote the royal body-guard. “Who could believe it possible that two synonymous epithets should be joined together in this manner, which would be equivalent to saying Englishmen and Britons?” (Ges. Thes. p. 1107). Thirdly, it is opposed to the title afterwards given to the body-guard, והרצים הכּרי (2Ki 11:4, 2Ki 11:19), in which the Cari correspond to the Crethi, as in 2Sa 20:23, and ha-razim to the Pelethi; so that the term pelethi can no more signify a particular tribe than the term razim can. Moreover, there are other grave objections to this interpretation. In the first place, the hypothesis that the Philistines were emigrants from Crete is merely founded upon the very indefinite statements of Tacitus (Hist. v. 3, 2), “Judaeos Creta insula profugos novissima Libyae insedisse memorant,” and that of Steph. Byz. (s. v. Γαζά), to the effect that the city of Gaza was once called Minoa, from Minos a king of Crete, - statements which, according to the correct estimate of Strauss (l.c.), “have all so evidently the marks of fables that they hardly merit discussion,” at all events when opposed to the historical testimony of the Old Testament (Deu 2:23; Amo 9:7), to the effect that the Philistines sprang from Caphtor. And secondly, “it is a priori altogether improbable, that a man with so patriotic a heart, and so devoted to the worship of the one God, should have surrounded himself with a foreign and heathen body-guard” (Thenius). This argument cannot be invalidated by the remark “that it is well known that at all times kings and princes have preferred to commit the protection of their persons to foreign mercenaries, having, as they thought, all the surer pledge of their devotedness in the fact that they did not spring from the nation, and were dependent upon the ruler alone” (Hitzig). For, in the first place, the expression “at all times” is one that must be very greatly modified; and secondly, this was only done by kings who did not feel safe in the presence of their own people, which was not the case with David. And the Philistines, those arch-foes of Israel, would have been the last nation that David would have gone to for the purpose of selecting his own body-guard. It is true that he himself had met with a hospitable reception in the land of the Philistines; but it must be borne in mind that it was not as king of Israel that he found refuge there, but as an outlaw flying from Saul the king of Israel, and even then the chiefs of the Philistines would not trust him (1Sa 29:3.). And when Hitzig appeals still further to the fact, that according to 2Sa 18:2, David handed over the command of a third of his army to a foreigner who had recently entered his service, having emigrated from Gath with a company of his fellow-countrymen (2Sa 15:19-20, 2Sa 15:22), and who had displayed the greatest attachment to the person of David (2Sa 15:21), it is hardly necessary to observe that the fact of David’s welcoming a brave soldier into his army, when he had come over to Israel, and placing him over a division of the army, after he had proved his fidelity so decidedly as Ittai had at the time of Absalom’s rebellion, is no proof that he chose his body-guard from the Philistines. Nor can 2Sa 15:18 be adduced in support of this, as the notion that, according to that passage, David had 600 Gathites in his service as body-guard, is simply founded upon a misinterpretation of the passage mentioned.}

And David’s sons were כּהנים (“confidants”); not priests, domestic priests, court chaplains, or spiritual advisers, as Gesenius, De Wette, and others maintain, but, as the title is explained in the corresponding text of the Chronicles, when the title had become obsolete, “the first at the hand (or side) of the king.” The correctness of this explanation is placed beyond the reach of doubt by 1Ki 4:5, where the cohen is called, by way of explanation, “the king’s friend.” The title cohen may be explained from the primary signification of the verb כּהן, as shown in the corresponding verb and noun in Arabic (“res alicujus gerere,” and “administrator alieni negotii”). These cohanim, therefore, were the king’s confidential advisers.