Et zachar vs. Ve'et zachar

Summary: Another analysis of the absence or presence of a leading vav. In this instance, our Masoretic text is supported by the Samaritan text.

Post: In the first printed Mikraos Gedolos, from 1524, by Bomberg, in Venice, we see a weird encoding of a pasuk at the end of parashat Acharei Mot. :

Even as Onkelos has ve'et zacher, he puts et-zachar as the beginning of the pasuk, in Vayikra 18:22. The Samaritans don't have this, and Vetus Testamentum does not list any Jewish Torah texts which have this variant either. So too, Christian David Ginsburg does not list any such variant. And looking at various sites, such mechon-mamre, there is no such variant.

One of the tasks Minchas Shai took upon himself is to correct the printing of this first Mikraos Gedolos, printed by Daniel Bomberg. And so the Mikraos Gedolos linked to above, available at JNUL, it very useful as a companion to Minchas Shai. (At least I think it is the same one -- I see the same error Minchas Shai discusses, and it is the correct year and place; yet I don't see the Masoretic notes Minchas Shai discusses.)

Minchas Shai writes on this:

"וְאֶת-זָכָר -- with a vav. So I have heard, and it is brought as such in Yevamot at the end of perek haArel {83b; J: also see the Yerushalmi with the same}, see Tosafot Yom Tov and Sefer HaChinuch. And in Sanhedrin, perek daled mitot, and at the end of perek hanisrafin, and in the Sifra on parashat Kedoshim, and so did the sage R' Moshe Nagara darshen in sefer Lekach Tov, which he authored on the Torah. And in the Masora Gedolah, there are 72 pairs, where one is et and the other is ve'et, and this is one of them: ve'ish asher yishkav et zachar mishkevei isha of parashat Kedoshim as opposed to ve'et zachar lo tishkav mishkevei isha. And the printer {of this Mikraos Gedolos, above} himself wrote in parashat Kedoshim: leita, ve'achat ve'et zachar -- while here he contradicts his words and messes up all that he wrote, whether within or without. And he needs to write in the verse, ve'et, and in the margins leit ve'achat et zachar, and this is the one of parashat Kedoshim; and so I have seen in masoretic manuscripts."

{Update: Here is the masoretic note in question, in Kedoshim:

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I don't think we should expect to see this variant anywhere. Sometimes printers simply make mistakes, and Minchas Shai documented this one quite well. So we don't even need the support of the Samaritan text; though perhaps we could assert that there is a difference in the ve'et vs. the et, yet the Samaritans do not
harmonize it out of existence, lends a bit of credence to our reading. But again, even without this, our reading stands on extremely strong ground.