Example of a Small Theological Change to the Text of Genesis 2:2

  

Gen 2:2	MT	‎וַיְכַ֤ל אֱלֹהִים֙ בַּיּ֣וֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִ֔י מְלַאכְתּ֖וֹ אֲשֶׁ֣ר On the seventh day God completed (the work that He had been doing).
	SP	ויכל אלהים ברום הששי מלאכתו אשר עשה
	= LXX	καὶ συνετέλεσεν ὁ θεὸς ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ ἕκτῃ On the sixth day God completed (the work that He had been doing)

 

According to the MT, God completed his work “on the seventh day,” involving a millisecond of work (Rashi) on that day. However, some scribes (and possibly translators) probably found it difficult to imagine that God would have worked on the seventh day and therefore corrected the presumably primary reading to a theologically easier one. (Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible [4^th ed.; Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 2022], 311)

 

Rashi, referenced above, offered the following commentary for Gen 2:2:

 

ויכל אלהים ביום השביעי AND ON THE SEVENTH DAY GOD FINISHED — R. Simeon says: A human being (literally, flesh and blood) who cannot know exactly his times and moments (who cannot accurately determine the point of time that marks the division between one period and that which follows it) must needs add from the week-day and observe it as the holy day (the Sabbath), but the Holy One, blessed be He, who knows His times and moments, began it (the seventh day) to a very hair’s breadth (with extreme exactness) and it therefore appeared as though He had completed His work on that very day (Genesis Rabbah 10:9). Another explanation: What did the world lack? Rest! Sabbath came — Rest came; and the work was thus finished and completed (Genesis Rabbah 10:9)!