KERI-CETIB, are various readings in the Hebrew Bible, keri signifying that which is read, and cetib that which is written. For where any such various readings occur, the wrong reading is written in the text, and that
is called the cetib; and the true reading is written in the margin, with p under it, and called the keri. It is generally said by the Jewish writers that these corrections were introduced by Ezra; but it is more probable that they had their origin from the mistakes of the transcribers after the time of Ezra, and the observations and corrections of the Masorites. Those keri-cetibs which are found in the sacred books written by Ezra himself, or which were taken into the canon after his time, could not have been noticed by Ezra himself; and this affords a presumption that the others are of later date. These words amount to about a thousand; and Dr Kennicott, in his Dissertatio Generalis, remarks that all of them excepting fourteen have been found in the text of different manuscripts.