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• I Kings 4:26 "And Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen."

  vs.

• II Chronicles 9:25 "And Solomon had four thousand stalls for horses and chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen."

So how many?

 < A possible explanation is that the reason for the discrepancy is simply a copyist error.

 There are a few reasons for this:

Firstly, Chronicles is known for having copyist errors in other areas. According to Introduction to the Old Testament, by Harrison, R. K: 

“In general it can be said that the books of Chronicles furnish approximate numerical estimates in the form of round numbers, frequently designed, as has been remarked, to express the magnitude of the occasion....Some estimates in Chronicles which appear to be particularly inflated can be corrected or scaled down by reference to the books of Samuel and Kings...However, it is not always the case that the figures in Chronicles exceed their counterparts in Samuel and Kings.”

That being said, the correct answer is probably 4,000 since 40,000 seems extraordinarily large.

Archaeological data indicates that 4000 would be an appropriate number of stalls for a nation the size of ancient Israel, whereas 40,000 would be very excessive. 4000 comports better with the number of horsemen. 

Also, there is sufficient explanation for a change taking place from the original text to the scribed text. According to Eric Vestrup from www.tektonics.org, “there is a reasonable probability that a scribe copied incorrectly, for "40" is spelled aleph-resh-bet-ayin-yodh-mem with "4" being spelled aleph-resh-bet-ayin-heh  the only difference being the plural "-im" ending in "40" while "4" has the singular feminine ending.”