People do dumb things with SQL, but depending on the query/set of columns, 2k is a pretty quick line count to reach. Just dont use select *, have a wide table, do more than a few trivial operations moving data around, and you'll get to 2k pretty quick.

That being said, people do dumb stuff with SQL all the time; The worst query I have ever seen was 11MB, megabytes. The worst query plan I have ever seen generated a plan that was ~130MB. I regularly have people ask questions in #sqlhelp (https://sqlps.io/slack/ SQL Server focused) like "Why can I only have 2100 parameters to a stored procedure?" (dude was super mad that I asked if his design might use some rework.)

I've told SQL learners before

There is no Advanced SQL; there's only "a very large amount of SQL", "exotic SQL", and "SQL no one should have written."

Are you sure it wasn't either:

+ a stored procedure

or

+ the end-product of an ORM tool?