diff --git a/mllib-local/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/linalg/Matrices.scala b/mllib-local/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/linalg/Matrices.scala
index 3272a50508..e9af16d1d1 100644
--- a/mllib-local/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/linalg/Matrices.scala
+++ b/mllib-local/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/linalg/Matrices.scala
@@ -1263,7 +1263,7 @@ object Matrices {
     var hasSparse = false
     var numRows = 0
     matrices.foreach { mat =>
-      require(numCols == mat.numCols, "The number of rows of the matrices in this sequence, " +
+      require(numCols == mat.numCols, "The number of columns of the matrices in this sequence, " +
         "don't match!")
       mat match {
         case sparse: SparseMatrix => hasSparse = true
diff --git a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/linalg/Matrices.scala b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/linalg/Matrices.scala
index e4f64b4e34..2f315da527 100644
--- a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/linalg/Matrices.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/linalg/Matrices.scala
@@ -1174,7 +1174,7 @@ object Matrices {
     var hasSparse = false
     var numRows = 0
     matrices.foreach { mat =>
-      require(numCols == mat.numCols, "The number of rows of the matrices in this sequence, " +
+      require(numCols == mat.numCols, "The number of columns of the matrices in this sequence, " +
         "don't match!")
       mat match {
         case sparse: SparseMatrix => hasSparse = true