David's military triumph over Aram Zobah is marked by a remarkable display of faith, as he deliberately gives up an enormous fortune in war spoils to obey a Divine command. During the battle, David chose not to kill the enemy soldiers. Instead, he took them alive, bound them, and demanded a ransom for their release [רד״ק, אברבנאל].
The records of the captured forces present a notable difference in numbers when compared to the parallel account in the Book of Chronicles. The primary approach among commentators is that the current account tallies only the senior officers and commanders present in the camp, amounting to one thousand seven hundred horsemen. In contrast, the Book of Chronicles provides the total number of all riders, including both commanders and their subordinates, which reached seven thousand, while also including a count of chariots omitted here [רד״ק, אברבנאל]. Another perspective suggests the difference stems from the counting methods themselves. Since a chariot unit consisted of ten horses overseen by a single horseman, the current record calculates the horses and horsemen together, whereas the Book of Chronicles counts each horse individually [מלבי״ם].
After securing the spoils, David took action to disable the captured horses by severing their hooves from the knee down, ensuring the animals could no longer move or be used in future battles [מצודת ציון, רד״ק, אברבנאל, ביאור שטיינזלץ]. He did this to fulfill the Torah's commandment that forbids a king of Israel from accumulating excessive numbers of horses. By destroying his newly acquired military advantage, David demonstrated his absolute trust in God, recognizing that relying on horses for military salvation is an illusion [אברבנאל]. He chose to disable the horses rather than kill them entirely to honor the prohibition against needless destruction. The Torah forbids the pointless killing of God's creatures, yet it permitted the disabling of enemy horses strictly to neutralize the danger of them being used against Israel again [רד״ק].
From the vast spoils, David retained only enough horses to supply one hundred chariots [ביאור שטיינזלץ]. Since each chariot required four horses, he kept exactly four hundred horses [רש״י, מצודת ציון, רד״ק, אברבנאל]. Retaining this specific number did not violate the Torah's prohibition, as David kept only what was strictly necessary for his personal use and his duties as king. The Torah only forbade the possession of idle, unnecessary horses, out of concern that such a surplus would lead to trade relations that might draw the nation back to Egypt. A king was fully permitted to maintain the horses essential for his royal chariot [רש״י, רד״ק, אברבנאל].