Komentaryo sa Genesis 43:30: Rashi, Radak, Sforno & Rabbeinu Bahya

כי נכמרו רחמיו FOR HIS COMPASSION WAS EXCITED — He asked him, “Have you a brother of the same mother as yourself?” — He replied, “I had a brother but I know not where he is”. — “Have you sons?” He replied, “I have ten”. Joseph asked him, “And what are their names?” Benjamin replied, “Bela, Becher etc.” (cf. 46:21). Joseph then enquired, “What are the ideas underlying these names?” He replied, “They all have some reference to my brother and the troubles that have befallen him. I called them Bela (בלע) because he disappeared (נבלע) amongst alien nations; Becher (בכר) because he was the firstborn (בכור) of his mother; Ashbel (אשבאל) because God sent him into captivity (שבאו אל), Gera (גרא) because he had to live (גר) in a foreign country; Naaman (נעמן) because he was exceedingly pleasant (נעים); Ahi (אחי) and Rosh (ראש) because he was my brother (אח) and my superior (ראש) ; Muppim (מופים) because he learned from the mouth (מפי) of my father; Huppim (חופים) because he did not witness my marriage (חופה —marriage canopy) and I did not witness his marriage; and Ard (ארד) because he went down (ירד) amongst the nations” — just as it related in Treatise Sotah 36b. When he heard all this immediately his affection was enkindled.

נכמרו, as translated by Onkelos “his feelings of mercy had been aroused.”

ויבך שמה, while he was thinking of the anguish his father and his brothers had experienced all these years

נכמרו means WAS ENKINDLED, BECAME HOT — In Mishnaic Hebrew we have (Bava Metzia 74a) “upon (כומר) a mass of heated olives”; in Aramaic (Pesachim 58a) “because of the (מכמר) drying up (through heat of the weather) of the meat”. And in Biblical Hebrew we have (Lamentations 5:10) “Our skin is hot (נכמרו) as though by an oven” — i.e. it became hot and full of wrinkles “because of the burning heat of the famine”, for it is the nature of any skin to wrinkle and shrink together when it becomes hot.