Genesis 43 – The famine continues to ravage the land. When the grain from Egypt is gone, Jacob wants them to go back and get more. Judah reminds him what they face there is they go back without Benjamin. This time [in this Yahwist source] it is Judah who takes mature responsibility for seeing to it that Benjamin returns safely. “’I personally guarantee his safety. You may hold me responsible if I don’t bring him back to you’” (43:9).

They go back, and they take gifts…

Sirach 44 – He turns to the praise of famous men: James Agee got the title of his 1941 book about sharecroppers in the South from this part of Sirach – Now Let Us Praise Famous Men. There have been men of authority, intelligent advisers and prophets, musicians and poets. “Some of them left a name behind them, . . .while others have left no memory, and disappeared as though they had not existed, it is now as though they had never been, and so too, their children after them”…