Commentaire sur La Genèse 43:7

לנו ולמולדתנו CONCERNING OURSELVES AND CONCERNING OUR KINDRED — concerning our families. A Midrashic comment based upon the meaning of מולדת, “birth” — He asked of us concerning the circumstances of our birth — is: he could even tell us of what kind of wood our cradles were made (Genesis Rabbah 91:10).

Even the type of wood of our childhood cradles he revealed to us. I.e., even the small children lying in a cradle. [Rashi knows this] because it is written מולדתנו, which alludes to the cradles in which the children (ילדים) lie.

ה׳ השאלה ,הידוע נדע. Das הי hat eine dreifache Modulierung. Der Laut an sich ist belebter Atem, deshalb ist er Träger des Seins in הוה ,היה usw. Wo ein Dasein unselbständig, fast als nicht daseiend erscheinen soll, da erscheint das ׳ה ruhend, verschwindend für das Gehör. So auch ׳ה fem.: so auch das ׳ה optativum wie נרדה, das Hinuntergehen ist noch nicht positiv entschieden, sondern nur im Wunsch herandämmernd. Eine positiv vorliegende Wirklichkeit ist: הַסֵפֶר ,הַ, dann liegt es da. Ist die Existenz noch schwankend zwischen Sein und Nichtsein, so schwankt auch der Laut: ?הְַסֵפֶר הזה הְַ־ das fragende und staunende ה.

הידוע נדע, “were we supposed to have known?

ונגד לו AND WE TOLD HIM that we had a father and a brother.

That we have a father and a brother. [Rashi inserts these words into the verse] because על פי הדברים האלה means, “According to his questions.” It follows that ונגד לו means, “We told him such and such, according to his questions.” However, if the verse meant, “We told him the questions he asked, ‘Do you have a father and a brother?’” then it should simply say ונגד לו את הדברים האלה.

על פי הדברים האלה ACCORDING TO THE TENOR OF THESE WORDS — we were forced to tell him according to the tenor of the questions he put to us.

כי יאמר THAT HE WOULD SAY — The word כי is used here in the sense of אשר “that”. The word כי may be used in the sense of אם and אם may be used in the sense of אשר; therefore this (i.e. אשר) is one of the four meanings in which כי, according to the Rabbis, is used, viz., אם (Rosh Hashanah 3a), for the word כי here has the same meaning as אם, as in (24:33) עד אם דברתי דברי “until that I have spoken my words” (where אם is the same as כי or אשר).