ותבלענה השבלים. פי' גדלו עד שכסו האחרות מל' כבלע את הקדש. אבל אין לפרש לשון בליעה ממש דאין מראין לו לאדם דעייל פילא בקופא דמחטא זהו מדרש אבל לפי הפשט הוא לשון בליעה ממש והיינו דקאמר בסוף וייקץ פרעה והנה חלום אמר פרע' מה שהפרות אוכלות זו את זו יכול להיות אבל בליעת השבלים זה ודאי חלום הוא: ותבלענה השבלים, “the ears swallowed;” the text is not to be understood literally; the meaning appears to be that each successively growing ear of corn completely covered the one that had grown before it, so that it could not be seen by the beholder, but it had not vanished as does the food one swallows. The expression בלע in the sense of “covering” occurs in Numbers 4,20, when the holy vessels being packed before the Israelites broke camp is discussed. According to the Talmud, tractate B’rachot, folio 55, where dreams are discussed at length, the Talmud states that G–d does not send a dream to a person in which he is shown something that does not make any sense, such as an elephant passing through the eye of a needle. This statement is to be understood as an aggadah. The plain meaning of our verse is that Pharaoh believed he had seen the ears of corns being swallowed by their hollowed out counterparts. This is why the Torah had to add that when he awoke he realised that he had not seen something real, but that it was a dream in which one does see such things. Pharaoh could understand that cows eat each other, but he was baffled by ears of corn consuming one another. Hence he was convinced that he had only dreamt, although the dream was very vivid.