4000 or 40000 stalls?

Question

KI1 4:26 And Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen.
CH2 9:25 And Solomon had four thousand stalls for horses and chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen; whom he bestowed in the chariot cities, and with the king at Jerusalem.

It's not a copying error because the concept of zero wasn't invented then, they wrote the numbers out with words.

Answer 1

A simple google search gives at least two other answers:

Others believe that the stalls mentioned in 2 Chronicles were large ones that housed 10 horses each (that is, a row of ten stalls). Therefore 4,000 of these large stalls would be equivalent to 40,000 small ones.

Another commentator maintains that the number of stalls recorded in 1 Kings was the number at the beginning of Solomon's reign, whereas the number recorded in 2 Chronicles was the number of stalls at the end of his reign. We know that Solomon reigned for 40 years; no doubt, many changes occurred during this period. It is quite likely that he reduced the size of the military machine his father David had left him.

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Does it matter though? Does God's existence or your salvation depend on how many stalls Solomon had? I think not.

Answer 2

Kings and Chronicles were written centuries apart, further, a closer reading lends support that different time periods within Solomon's reign are being discussed. Hence, both are correct.

BTW CH2 ch1 states he had 1,400 chariots

But aside from that, it could well be a copyist's error. The term for 4000 is arba'ath alawfim while the term for 40,000 is arba'aim awlef. If a copyist switched which word is plural, it would change the meaning for 4,000 to 40,000 and/or vice-versa

Answer 3

It could be a copyists if the error was made when the bible was being converted over from its original form to more recent versions when zeros were known and numbers were written out as actual numbers. Are you getting this from the original texts or are you looking at a modern bible? You can't make assertations about the original text based on a copy of it.