Seven hundred chariots - More probable than the "seven thousand" of 1 Chronicles 19:18. The frequent errors in numbers arise from the practice of expressing numerals by letters, with one or more dots or dashes to indicate hundreds, thousands, etc.

Seven Hundred chariots - and forty thousand Horsemen - In the parallel place, 1 Chronicles 19:18, it is said, David slew of the Syrians Seven Thousand men, which fought in chariots. It is difficult to ascertain the right number in this and similar places. It is very probable that, in former times, the Jews expressed, as they often do now, their numbers, not by words at full length, but by numeral letters; and, as many of the letters bear a great similarity to each other, mistakes might easily creep in when the numeral letters came to be expressed by words at full length. This alone will account for the many mistakes which we find in the numbers in these books, and renders a mistake here very probable. The letter ז zain, with a dot above, stands for seven thousand, נ nun for seven hundred: the great similarity of these letters might easily cause the one to be mistaken for the other, and so produce an error in this place.

And the Syrians fled before Israel,.... After an obstinate and bloody fight between them:

and David slew the men of seven hundred chariots of the Syrians; the word "men" is rightly supplied, for chariots could not be said to be slain, but the men in them; in 1 Chronicles 19:17, they are said to be seven thousand, here seven hundred; which may be reconciled by observing, that here the chariots that held the men are numbered, there the number of the men that were in the chariots given, and reckoning ten men in a chariot, seven hundred chariots held just seven thousand men; though Kimchi takes another way of reconciling the two places, by observing that here only the choicest chariots are mentioned, there all of them, but the former way seems best:

and forty thousand horsemen; in 1 Chronicles 19:17; it is forty thousand "footmen", and so Josephus (c); and the same may be called both horse and foot, be cause though they might come into the field of battle on horseback, yet might dismount and fight on foot; and so one historian calls them horsemen, and the other footmen; or the whole number of the slain, horse and foot mixed together, were forty thousand; Kimchi makes use of another way of removing this difficulty, and which perhaps is the best, that here only the horsemen are numbered that were slain, and there the footmen only, and both true; an equal number of each being slain, in all eighty thousand, besides the seven thousand in the chariots:

and smote Shobach the captain of their host, who died there; of his wounds upon the spot.

(c) Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 7. c. 6. sect. 3.)

And the Syrians fled before Israel; and David slew the men of {g} seven hundred chariots of the Syrians, and forty thousand horsemen, and smote Shobach the captain of their host, who died there.

(g) Who were the chief and most principal: for in all he destroyed 7000, as in 1Ch 19:18, or the soldiers who were in 700 chariots.

horsemen: also called, footmen

10:15-19 Here is a new attempt of the Syrians. Even the baffled cause will make head as long as there is any life in it; the enemies of the Son of David do so. But now the promise made to Abraham, Ge 15:18, and repeated to Joshua, Jos 1:4, that the borders of Israel should extend to the river Euphrates, was performed. Learn hence, that it is dangerous to help those who have God against them; for when they fall, their helpers will fall with them.