פירוש על בראשית 47:13

ולחם אין בכל הארץ AND THERE WAS NO BREAD IN ALL THE LAND — Scripture reverts now to the original subject, viz, to the account of the beginning of the years of famine.

ותלה, similar to the word ותכה in Job 17,7 ותכה מכעס עיני, where it means: ”my eyes fail from vexation.” The letter ה is part of the root, this is why it has the mappik, similar to נגה אור in Job 22,28.in the word נגה. [indicates the letter is not a pronoun. Ed.]

ולחם אין…כי כבד הרעב מאד, there was no bread…because the famine was very severe, etc. The Torah informs us of the psychology of hunger. During a famine people have a tendency to eat inordinate amounts of food thus causing their reserves of food to be depleted prematurely. The author describes a personal experience of famine in the country he lived in where a person ate ten times the amount of food he would eat normally and still felt hungry.