Did the translator make a mistake? Gen 47: 5-7 in the Masoretic Text and Septuagint translation

Abstract

The analysis of Genesis 47: 5-7 in the Greek version of the Septuagint and the Masoretic Text raises a double question: a problem of literary nature and one of textual criticism. Thus, a different Vorlage in the LXX text and different from the MT, an error in the textual transmission, or an attempt to reorganize the text in the Septuagint and the Masoretic Text. Or, an attempt at reorganization by the Greek translator? The divergences between the intricate and contradictory version as in the LXX and a more fluid version as in the MT suggest other alternative solutions. At the base of the problem lies the coexistence of different traditions of the same event within the account of vv. 5-6, for whose identification the Greek text is more favorable, with the later (priestly) addition of v. 7.  The present version of TM would reflect the last elaboration of a form, still in process, of vv. 5-6 known to LXX in moments before its definitive stabilization.

Without reflecting a distinct underlying Vorlage, LXX would only testify to the evolving and probably older version of the Hebrew text. In any case, if anyone should be credited, it would be the Hebrew "editor," who, having weighed the difficulty of the reading contained in his version and present in the Vorlage of LXX, set out to achieve a more harmonious and less strident textual organization in vv. 5-6.