Verse 26
26. Forty thousand stalls of horses Most interpreters have regarded this as a corruption in the text, and have thought to emend it by substituting the reading of 2 Chronicles 9:25, four thousand. But this is a doubtful emendation. True, 40,000 seems a very large number, and may be an error; but 4,000 seems too small a number to require 12,000 horsemen. Then the reading in Chronicles is somewhat different from this. There it says he had 4,000 stalls for horses and chariots, which may mean that each stall that contained a chariot might also have several horses. But while at this late day it may be impossible to settle this question of numbers, it is still clear that Solomon multiplied horses in Israel, and thereby transgressed the law prescribed for kings in Deuteronomy 17:16.
Twelve thousand horsemen The word פרשׁים , here and often elsewhere rendered horsemen, is also used in the sense of steeds; riding horses. It usually means cavalry, including both horse and rider.
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