1 Kings 4:26

Forty thousand stalls of horses. In 2 Chronicles 9:25, it is but four thousand. Answ. First, Some acknowledge an error of the transcriber, writing arbahim, forty, for arbah, four, which was an easy mistake. And such mistakes in some copies, in these lesser matters, God might permit, for the trial and exercise of our faith, without any prejudice to the authority of the sacred Scriptures in the great doctrines of faith and good life. Secondly, It is not exactly the same Hebrew word which is here and there, though we translate both stalls; and therefore there may well be allowed some difference in the signification, the one signifying properly stables, of which there were 4000, the other stalls or partitions for each horse, which were 40,000; which great number seems directly forbidden, Deuteronomy 17:16, except Solomon had some particular dispensation from God, which might be, though it be not recorded. For his chariots; both for his military chariots, which seem to be those 1400, 1 Kings 10:26, and for divers other uses, as about his great and various buildings, and merchandises, and other occasions, which might require some thousands of other chariots. Twelve thousand horsemen; appointed partly for the defence and preservation of his people in peace; and partly for attendance upon his person, and for the splendour of his government. Compare 1 Kings 10:26. But the words may be otherwise rendered, and twelve thousand horses, for parash manifestly signifies both a horse and horsemen. And these might be a better sort of horses than most of those which were designed for the chariots. Or thus, and for (which particle is easily understood and borrowed from the foregoing clause) twelve thousand horsemen; and so he means that the 40,000 horses were in part appointed for his chariots, and in part for his 12,000 horsemen.