Note: Is this an example of a staircase parallel? The division of the statement into two parts draws out the poignancy of the situation.

A. Now therefore when I come to thy servant my father, and the lad be not with us;

B. seeing that his life is bound up in the lad’s life;

A’. 31 It shall come to pass, when he seeth that the lad is not with us,

C. that he will die

= ABC=  Now therefore when I come to thy servant my father, when he seeth  the lad be not with us; seeing that his life is bound up in the lad’s life; that he will die.