Greetings Eric,

We're sorry for the delay; we had some problems receiving our mail (somehow our domain "dafyomi.co.il" was placed on the spam-filter list that Netvision uses, and thus none of the email being forwarded from our "ask@dafyomi.co.il" address was making it to our Netvision address).

You are correct that according to the Gemara's answer to reconcile the verse in Melachim with the verse in Divrei ha'Yamim, it would come out that Shlomo ha'Melech had 160 million horses.

However, it seems that a printer's error crept into the Vilna Shas. The word "Elef" should not appear in each of the two phrases of the Gemara after the word "Arba'im." That is, the Gemara should say "Im Arba'im Itztabla'os Hayu," instead of "Im Arba'im Elef Itztabla'os Hayu," and similarly in the Gemara's second phrase. Accordingly, there were only160,000, instead of 160 million. See DIKDUKEI SOFRIM. (The Peshat in the verse in Melachim would then be that he had 40 stables containing thousands of horses, while the verse in Divrei ha'Yamim would be that he had 4000 horses in each of his stables.)

The RADAK (Melachim 1 5:6) also has such a Girsa, but in his first phrase he has 40 stables with 4000 horses (for a total of 160,000), and in his second phrase he has 40,000 stables with 40 horses (for a total of 1.6 million).

The METZUDAS DAVID and RALBAG also have such a Girsa, but they write that there was only 10 horses in each stable, and there were 4000 stables. Thus, the verse in Melachim is giving the total number of horses in the stables, while the verse in Divrei ha'Yamim is giving the total number of stables. It seems that this was their Girsa in the Gemara.

I hope this clarifies things.

All the best,

Yisroel Shaw