Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Samuel 13:5

"And the Philistines assembled themselves together to fight with Israel, thirty thousand chariots, and six thousand horsemen, and people as the sand which is on the sea-shore in multitude: and they came up, and encamped in Michmash, eastward of Beth-aven." — 1 Samuel 13:5 (ASV)

And the Philistines gathered themselves together to fight with Israel. —The figures provided here, again, for the numbers in this vast army are perfectly untrustworthy. In the records of ancient armies (and we possess many such examples in the sacred records), the number of war chariots is always smaller than that of the horsemen; here, the chariots are represented as four times as numerous. In the records of the most famous armies, numbers like these never appear.

For instance, Jabin (Judges 4:3) had 900 chariots. Pharaoh pursued Israel with 600. When David defeated Syria, the great Syrian army had 40,000 horsemen and 700 chariots. King Solomon is only reported (1 Kings 10:26) to have possessed 1,400 chariots.

Zerah the Ethiopian had only 300 chariots in his vast army, and Pharaoh Shishak had 1,200. Therefore, the more probable reading for the Philistine chariots would be “300,” not 30,000. Bishop Wordsworth endeavors to explain the vast array by a reference to Josephus, who states that this Philistine force was composed of various nations; however, this explanation would still not account for such an incredible number of chariots.

The Philistines evidently wasted no time. While Saul was endeavoring to rally a Hebrew army at Gilgal, Philistia, with the aid of foreign allies, immediately took the field. With a large army—for it is clear their host on this occasion was very large—they encamped not far from Gilgal, evidently determined once and for all to crush their enemies and their recently elected, daring king.