Not until ( sentence ) + do (sentence)

Can someone explain the structure of the following sentence?

  • It was not until hours later did I find him.

Does it have anything to do with emphasis ?


The sentence is not grammatical. It should either be

It was not until hours later that I found him.

or

Not until hours later did I find him.

This structure indeed emphasizes the temporal adverb. It means the same thing as

I didn't find him until hours later. (= I found him hours later)