The number, ‘thirty thousand chariots’ causes some amazement. Some of the modern versions modify that to three thousand, assuming there is a scribal error involved here. Why do they say that? Because a few of the manuscripts have got ‘three thousand chariots’, when the majority say ‘thirty thousand’. This is the way they reason: ‘Thirty thousand chariots? Far too many! It must be a mistake. The Philistines couldn't possibly have had thirty thousand chariots.’ But they were inflated with mercenaries. That is obvious, as you read through the whole account. You can only account for the chaos and confusion in their camp, and the fact that they were fighting one another, on the basis that this massive army they fielded was full of mercenaries of different nationalities, who didn't know who was a friend and who was foe. That was their undoing. They would not be described as people as the sand which is on the seashore in multitude, with a mere three thousand chariots. So just about every Philistine possibly was brought in over a huge area, and they pitched in Michmash. We need to rush to assume all sorts of textual errors, and alter the rendering. Anyway, they gathered a vast number.