Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Chronicles 19:7

"So they hired them thirty and two thousand chariots, and the king of Maacah and his people, who came and encamped before Medeba. And the children of Ammon gathered themselves together from their cities, and came to battle." — 1 Chronicles 19:7 (ASV)

So they hired thirty-two thousand chariots, and the king of Maachah and his people. —The account that the chronicler followed here did not state the relative strength of the contingents, yet its estimate of the total number of the allied forces is in substantial agreement with that of Samuel. The chronicler puts the total at 32,000 plus the Maachathite contingent; Samuel at 32,000 plus 1,000 Maachathites. The expression “32,000 chariotry” (rèkeb) should not be taken literally. The writer wished to properly stress the chariots and cavalry as the primary strength of the Aramean states, and at the same time to be as concise as possible.

That he was not thinking of 32,000 chariots in the literal sense is clear for the following reasons:

1. Because he must have known that an army would not consist of chariots only.
2. In 1 Chronicles 18:4 he had already assigned to the army of Zobah its natural proportions of chariots, cavalry, and infantry (Compare 1 Chronicles 19:18, below).

The present text of Samuel can hardly be right, as it makes the whole army consist of infantry (Compare 2 Samuel 8:4). The great plains of Aram were a natural training-ground for horsemen and charioteers.

Who came and pitched (their camp) before Medeba. —Another detail peculiar to Chronicles. Medeba, the meeting-place of the Aramean forces, lay southeast of Heshbon, on a site now known as Madibiya.

And the children of Ammon gathered themselves ... —The muster of the Ammonites is not mentioned in Samuel.