For how shall I go up to my father, and the lad be not with me? lest peradventure I see the evil that shall come on my father.

For I cannot return to my father without the boy, lest I be a witness of the calamity that will oppress my father.

For how shall I return to my father, and the lad be not with me? lest perhaps I see the evil that shall come on my father.

for how do I go up unto my father, and the youth not with me? lest I look on the evil which doth find my father.'

For how may I go back to my father without the boy, and see the evil which will come on my father?

For I cannot return to my father without the boy, lest I appear as a witness to the calamity that will oppress my father."

Quomodo enim ascendam ad patrem meum, si puer non fuerit mecum? Ne forte videam malum quod inveniet patrem meum.

For (h) how shall I go up to my father, and the lad [be] not with me? lest peradventure I see the evil that shall come on my father.
(h) Meaning, he would rather remain as their prisoner, than to return and see his father in sorrow.

For how shall I go up to my father, and the lad be not with me?.... Signifying that he must abide in Egypt, and chose to do it, and could not go up to the land of Canaan any more or see his father's face without Benjamin along with him, to whom he was a surety for him:
lest peradventure I see the evil that shall come on my father; see him die, or live a life of sorrow worse than death: this he could not bear, and chose rather to be a slave in Egypt, than to be the spectator of such an affecting scene. By this speech of Judah, Joseph plainly saw the great affection which his brethren, especially Judah, had for his father and his brother Benjamin, as well as the sense they had of their evil in selling him, which lay uppermost on their minds, and for which they thought themselves brought into all this trouble; wherefore he could no longer conceal himself from them, but makes himself known unto them, which is the principal subject of the following chapter.