Comentario sobre Génesis 43:2

כאשר כלו לאכל WHEN THEY HAD EATEN UP — Judah said to them: Leave the old man alone until the house will run short of bread (Midrash Tanchuma, Miketz 8).

שובו שברו לנו, for he thought that their intent in wanting to take Binyamin with them was in order to lose him as they had lost Joseph. He had previously accused them of bereaving him (deliberately) when he had said (42,36) אותי שכלתם, “you have bereaved me,” (transitive active conjugation). He meant to deny that what they had told him at the time had been the truth.

כאשר כלו לאכול, when they had finished eating, etc. Perhaps the Torah mentions this fact to indicate that they had just enough grain left to last them for a journey to and from Egypt. The reason the Torah describes the supply as if it had already come to an end is that now there was a need to bring more grain. It could also be that the Torah considered the food consumed by the brothers while journeying back and forth as part of the supply that Jacob had stored in anticipation of the famine as we have learned in Taanit 10 based on the words למה תתראו in 42,1. This is the reason why the Torah emphasises that what had been eaten up was the "grain they had brought from Egypt" as distinct from their total store.

Yehudah had told them, “Wait...” Otherwise, why did only Yehudah reply to, “Go back and buy a little food,” when this was said to them all? Perforce, [it is as Rashi explained].

When they had finished. See Rashi — if waiting was not a stratagem on Yehudah’s part he should have spoken up as soon as Yaakov rejected Reuvein’s offer.

כאשר כלו WHEN THEY HAD FINISHED [EATING THE GRAIN] — The Targum renders it by כד שציאו which means “when they finished” in the sense of making an end of doing an action. He who has the reading in the Targum כד ספיקו “when they had enough” is in error. The words (24:22) כאשר כלו הגמלים לשתות “when the camels had finished drinking” are rightly rendered in the Targum כד ספיקו which means “when they had drunk sufficient for their needs”, for that was the end of their drinking. Here, however, this phrase “when they had finished eating” refers to the time when the food came to an end, and we should render it in the Targum by כד שציאו when they had finished (which means finishing in the sense of nothing being left over).