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Act_7:14-15. Ἐν ψ . ἑβδομήκ . πέντε ] in 75 souls (persons, Act_2:41, Act_27:37), he called his father and (in general) the whole family, i.e. he called them in a personal number of 75, which was the sum containing them. The expression is a Hebraism ( áÌÀ ), after the LXX. Deu_10:22. In the number Stephen, however, follows the LXX. Gen_46:27, Exo_1:5,[200] where likewise 75 souls are specified, whereas the original text (which Josephus follows, Antt. ii. 7. 4, vi. 5. 6) reckons only 70.[201]
ΑὐΤῸς Κ . ΟἹ ΠΑΤ . ἩΜῶΝ ] he and our patriarchs (generally). A very common epanorthosis. See on Joh_2:12.
[200] At Deut. l.c. also Codex A has the reading 75, which is, however, evidently a mere alteration by a later hand in accordance with the two other passages. Already Philo (see Loesner, p. 185) mentions the two discrepant statements of number (75 according to Gen. l.c. and Ex. l.c., and 70 according to Deut. l.c.) and allegorizes upon them.
[201] According to the Hebrew, the number 70 is thus made up: all the descendants of Jacob who came down with him to Egypt are fixed at 66, Gen_46:26, and then, ver. 27, Joseph and his two sons and Jacob himself (that is, four persons more) are included. In the reckoning of the LXX., influenced by a discrepant tradition, there are added to those 66 persons (ver. 26) in ver. 27 (contrary to the original text), υἱοὶ δὲ Ἰωσὴφ οἱ γενόμενοι αὐτῇ ἐν γῇ Αἰγύπτῳ ψυχαὶ ἐννέα , so that 75 persons are made out. It is thus evidently contrary to this express mode of reckoning of the LXX., when it is commonly assumed (also by Wetstein, Michaelis, Rosenmüller, Kuinoel, Olshausen) that the LXX. had added to the 70 persons of the original text 5 grandchildren and great-grand-children of Joseph (who are named in the LXX Gen_46:20). But in the greatest contradiction to the above notice of the LXX. stands the view of Seb. Schmid, with whom Wolf agrees, that the LXX. had added to the 66 persons (ver. 26) the wives of the sons of Jacob, and from the sum of 78 thereby made up had again deducted 3 persons, namely, the wife of Judah who had died in Canaan, the wife of Joseph and Joseph himself, so that the number 75 is left. Entirely unhistorical is the hypothesis of Krebs and Loesner. “Stephanum apud Luc. (et LXX.) de iis loqui, qui in Aegyptum invitati fuerint, Mosen de his, qui eo venerint, quorum non nisi 70 fuerunt.” Beza conjectured, instead of πέντε in our passage: πάντες (!); and Massonius, instead of the numeral signs OE (75), the numeral signs C Ξ (66). For yet other views, see Wolf.