2 Chronicles 9 · a question people ask
Four thousand stalls, or forty thousand?
Here, "Solomon had four thousand stalls for horses and chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen" (9:25). 1 Kings says, "Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen" (1 Kings 4:26). The Hebrew word for stalls is the same in both verses (see the word study), and so is the number of horsemen. The honest question in 1 Kings 4 sets the two counts side by side. These notes quote each as its verse gives it and don't try to make them agree. The chapter's last word on the horses, "They brought horses for Solomon out of Egypt and out of all lands" (9:28), comes back to 1:16, and the honest question in chapter 1 gives the main ways Christians read Solomon's horses beside Moses' law, "Only he shall not multiply horses to himself" (Deuteronomy 17:16).
The verses
“Solomon had four thousand stalls for horses and chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen that he stationed in the chariot cities and with the king at Jerusalem.”
“Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen.”
“They brought horses for Solomon out of Egypt and out of all lands.”
“The horses which Solomon had were brought out of Egypt and from Kue. The king’s merchants purchased them from Kue.”