Tafsiran Kejadian 41:51: Alshekh, Rashbam, Sforno & Radak

[Joseph] put into his heart that, in that the Lord was with him, he was not brought down there for naught; but rather to precipitate the [arrival of the] Divine Presence in Egypt, such that he was Its 'chariot.' And so he saw that the Lord was with him. And therefore when he was in the house of his master, he did not inform his father, to redeem him form his master. And [so it was] in this way, regarding all of the times [that he was in Egypt], he was as if silent. As behold, the intellect would suggest that at least when he was still in the jail, he would assuage his father's worrying with a carrier to run with a letter from his hand. However since he stopped himself to not reveal [anything to his father], he therefore called his firstborn son, Menashe - meaning, it is good to praise the Lord, "for God made me forget all my toil, and all my father’s house." As I was given the strength to forget this through him... As if not, I would have told my father's household. But the Lord [granted him a child] so that his father would not redeem him from his distress with all of the wealth of his home, and that [he not] command him to return to his land. And [then] the entire preparation of the exile which He, may He be blessed, prepared by having His Divine Presence come to Egypt with Joseph as its chariot would have been spoiled. And this is [the meaning of] "for God made me forget..."

נשני, the construction of the word from the root נשש is similar to a similar construction of the root חנן in 33,11 where Yaakov explained to his brother Esau that he was looking at his children. The proof of this is the dagesh in the letter ש. [which effectively doubles that letter. Ed.] If the word nashani had been derived from the root נשה as in Isaiah 44,21 לא תנשני, or as in Lamentations 3,17, נשיתי טובה, where the root is one that loses its last root letter, the Torah here should have written nishani, instead of nashani. It then would have been parallel to the construction in Samuel II 19,27 עבדי רמני, rimani from the root רמה, to deceive, and other similar examples.

כי נשני אלוקים, what happened to him fore- shadowed what would happen in the future, as described in Isaiah 65,16 כי נשכחו הצרות הראשונות, “for the former troubles shall be forgotten