Select python version

Should  Makefile.in refer to 'python$(PYTHON_VERSION)' rather than 'python3'?  For example in the 'test:' target where I hit the problem doing what it said in the README for FreeBSD installation.  The box has the python38-3.8.13_2 and python39-3.9.13 packages installed as dependencies of other packages, but not the python3-3_3, or python3.9_3,2 currently the default python, packages.