diff --git a/docs/reference/how-to/size-your-shards.asciidoc b/docs/reference/how-to/size-your-shards.asciidoc
index 53f47fc88cdb2..31f4039bcfaca 100644
--- a/docs/reference/how-to/size-your-shards.asciidoc
+++ b/docs/reference/how-to/size-your-shards.asciidoc
@@ -546,23 +546,30 @@ PUT _cluster/settings
 ----
 
 [discrete]
+[[troubleshooting-max-docs-limit]]
 ==== Number of documents in the shard cannot exceed [2147483519]
 
-
-Elasticsearch shards reflect Lucene's underlying https://github.com/apache/lucene/issues/5176[index 
-`MAX_DOC` hard limit] of 2,147,483,519 (`(2^31)-129`) docs. This figure is
-the sum of `docs.count` plus `docs.deleted` as reported by the <<indices-stats,Index stats API>> 
-per shard. Exceeding this limit will result in errors like the following:
+Each {es} shard is a separate Lucene index, so it shares Lucene's
+https://github.com/apache/lucene/issues/5176[`MAX_DOC` limit] of having at most
+2,147,483,519 (`(2^31)-129`) documents. This per-shard limit applies to the sum
+of `docs.count` plus `docs.deleted` as reported by the <<indices-stats,Index
+stats API>>. Exceeding this limit will result in errors like the following:
 
 [source,txt]
 ----
 Elasticsearch exception [type=illegal_argument_exception, reason=Number of documents in the shard cannot exceed [2147483519]]
 ----
 
-TIP: This calculation may differ from the <<search-count,Count API's>> calculation, because the Count API does not include nested documents.
+TIP: This calculation may differ from the <<search-count,Count API's>>
+calculation, because the Count API does not include nested documents and does
+not count deleted documents.
 
+This limit is much higher than the <<shard-size-recommendation,recommended
+maximum document count>> of approximately 200M documents per shard.
 
-Try using the <<indices-forcemerge,Force Merge API>> to clear deleted docs. For example:
+If you encounter this problem, try to mitigate it by using the
+<<indices-forcemerge,Force Merge API>> to merge away some deleted docs. For
+example:
 
 [source,console]
 ----
@@ -570,10 +577,9 @@ POST my-index-000001/_forcemerge?only_expunge_deletes=true
 ----
 // TEST[setup:my_index]
 
-This will launch an asynchronous task which can be monitored via the <<tasks,Task Management API>>. 
-
-For a long-term solution try:
+This will launch an asynchronous task which can be monitored via the
+<<tasks,Task Management API>>.
 
-* <<docs-delete-by-query,deleting unneeded documents>> 
-* aligning the index to recommendations on this page by either 
-<<indices-split-index,Splitting>> or <<docs-reindex,Reindexing>> the index 
+It may also be helpful to <<docs-delete-by-query,delete unneeded documents>>,
+or to <<indices-split-index,split>> or <<docs-reindex,reindex>> the index into
+one with a larger number of shards.
diff --git a/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/common/ReferenceDocs.java b/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/common/ReferenceDocs.java
index 770ed4d213c55..65225530b7d38 100644
--- a/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/common/ReferenceDocs.java
+++ b/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/common/ReferenceDocs.java
@@ -77,6 +77,7 @@ public enum ReferenceDocs {
     NETWORK_BINDING_AND_PUBLISHING,
     SNAPSHOT_REPOSITORY_ANALYSIS,
     S3_COMPATIBLE_REPOSITORIES,
+    LUCENE_MAX_DOCS_LIMIT,
     // this comment keeps the ';' on the next line so every entry above has a trailing ',' which makes the diff for adding new links cleaner
     ;
 
diff --git a/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/engine/InternalEngine.java b/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/engine/InternalEngine.java
index 03d244cd8e4ef..8b1602e2ea2ca 100644
--- a/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/engine/InternalEngine.java
+++ b/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/engine/InternalEngine.java
@@ -45,6 +45,8 @@
 import org.elasticsearch.action.support.SubscribableListener;
 import org.elasticsearch.cluster.metadata.DataStream;
 import org.elasticsearch.cluster.service.ClusterApplierService;
+import org.elasticsearch.common.ReferenceDocs;
+import org.elasticsearch.common.Strings;
 import org.elasticsearch.common.lucene.LoggerInfoStream;
 import org.elasticsearch.common.lucene.Lucene;
 import org.elasticsearch.common.lucene.index.ElasticsearchDirectoryReader;
@@ -1688,7 +1690,13 @@ private Exception tryAcquireInFlightDocs(Operation operation, int addingDocs) {
         final long totalDocs = indexWriter.getPendingNumDocs() + inFlightDocCount.addAndGet(addingDocs);
         if (totalDocs > maxDocs) {
             releaseInFlightDocs(addingDocs);
-            return new IllegalArgumentException("Number of documents in the shard cannot exceed [" + maxDocs + "]");
+            return new IllegalArgumentException(
+                Strings.format(
+                    "Number of documents in the shard cannot exceed [%d]; for more information, see [%s]",
+                    maxDocs,
+                    ReferenceDocs.LUCENE_MAX_DOCS_LIMIT
+                )
+            );
         } else {
             return null;
         }
diff --git a/server/src/main/resources/org/elasticsearch/common/reference-docs-links.json b/server/src/main/resources/org/elasticsearch/common/reference-docs-links.json
index febcaec1ba057..cd325ce9010ac 100644
--- a/server/src/main/resources/org/elasticsearch/common/reference-docs-links.json
+++ b/server/src/main/resources/org/elasticsearch/common/reference-docs-links.json
@@ -37,5 +37,6 @@
   "ALLOCATION_EXPLAIN_API": "cluster-allocation-explain.html",
   "NETWORK_BINDING_AND_PUBLISHING": "modules-network.html#modules-network-binding-publishing",
   "SNAPSHOT_REPOSITORY_ANALYSIS": "repo-analysis-api.html",
-  "S3_COMPATIBLE_REPOSITORIES": "repository-s3.html#repository-s3-compatible-services"
+  "S3_COMPATIBLE_REPOSITORIES": "repository-s3.html#repository-s3-compatible-services",
+  "LUCENE_MAX_DOCS_LIMIT": "size-your-shards.html#troubleshooting-max-docs-limit"
 }