דברי הימים א, פרק י״ח, פסוק ד׳

David's military triumphs yielded a massive bounty of enemy chariots and horses, presenting him with a choice between expanding his own military might or adhering to a higher authority. Instead of leveraging this newly acquired power, he chose to neutralize it, driven by a blend of strategic foresight and strict obedience to Torah law.

During the battle, David captured an enormous force of fighters and horses. A historical record of this event notes the capture of seven thousand horsemen, though a parallel account in the Book of Samuel mentions only seventeen hundred. Commentators resolve this numerical gap in two primary ways. One perspective suggests that the smaller number refers only to the officers, commanders, and elite figures in the camp, whereas the larger number includes all the cavalrymen [רד״ק, מצודת דוד]. Building on this idea, [מלבי״ם] calculates that each commander oversaw ten riders, meaning seven hundred commanders led the seven thousand horsemen. Alternatively, [רלב״ג] proposes a chronological sequence, suggesting David initially captured seventeen hundred horsemen and later took the remainder upon reaching the enemy cities, bringing the total to seven thousand.

Following the capture, David actively dismantled the enemy's military capabilities. He achieved this by cutting the leg tendons of the horses to prevent them from running, or by physically destroying the wooden and iron chariots [מצודת ציון, ביאור שטיינזלץ]. From a strategic standpoint, this allowed David to suppress the enemy's offensive power, enabling him to rule over them without having to fully conquer and occupy their land [ביאור שטיינזלץ].

However, the primary motivation behind this drastic action was absolute submission to God. The primary approach among commentators is that David acted in strict obedience to the Torah's commandment forbidding a king from accumulating too many horses. Out of the vast number of captured chariots, David retained only one hundred. The law permits a king to keep only the horses necessary for his basic needs and his personal chariot, and David was remarkably careful not to exceed this quota [רש״י, רד״ק, חומת אנך].