1 Kings 4:26 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for chariots In 2 Chronicles 9:25, it is said, he had but four thousand. And Bochart thinks that the Hebrew word here used should be rendered four, not forty, or that some error has crept into the text in regard to the number here mentioned. It is justly observed, however, by Poole, that the Hebrew word translated stalls here, is not exactly the same word which is used, and so translated, in Chronicles; and that, therefore, there may well be allowed some difference in the signification; the one signifying, properly, stables; of such there were four thousand; the other stalls, or partitions for each horse, which were forty thousand. For his chariots Both for his military chariots, which seem to be those fourteen hundred, 1 Kings 10:26, and for divers other uses, as respecting his great and various buildings, and merchandises, and other occasions, which might require some thousands of other chariots. And twelve thousand horsemen Appointed partly for the defence of his people in peace, and partly for attendance upon his person, and for the splendour of his government.