ke.re.ti is a gentilic designation, chiefly for people named with royal and military personnel, and also for a coastal people.

The term most often identifies people named alongside royal officers, attendants, or fighting men; in other contexts it marks a people associated with the Negeb or the coast and addressed in judgment. The supplied forms are Gentilic nouns, predominantly masculine singular, with plural forms in the coastal judgments.

1. People named in royal and military settings · dominant

   The masculine singular Gentilic occurs with the Pelethites in royal and military clauses: in 2 Samuel 20:7 the APB renders them among those who went out from Jerusalem to pursue Sheba, and in 2 Samuel 20:23 it places them under Benaiah's oversight. In 1 Kings 1:38 and 1 Kings 1:44, the same form is included among those accompanying Solomon.

   2 Samuel 20:72 Samuel 20:231 Kings 1:381 Kings 1:441 Chronicles 18:172 Samuel 15:18
2. People identified with land and coast · occasional

   In 1 Samuel 30:14, the masculine singular Gentilic occurs in the phrase rendered by the APB as “the Negeb of the Cherethites,” alongside the territory of Judah and the Negeb of Caleb. The masculine plural form appears in Ezekiel 25:16, where the APB renders their being cut off amid judgment against the Philistines, and in Zephaniah 2:5, where it calls them a nation of the coast.

   1 Samuel 30:14Ezekiel 25:16Zephaniah 2:5

In the Anselm Project Bible: The APB usually presents the singular Gentilic form collectively as “the Cherethites,” while 2 Samuel 8:18 has “the Cherethite” and the plural forms in Ezekiel 25:16 and Zephaniah 2:5 are also “Cherethites.” These English choices confirm the verse-level presentation rather than define each token independently.