What Does Judges 14:5 Mean?
Then Samson went down, and his father and his mother, to Timnath, and came to the vineyards of Timnath. And behold, a young lion roared against him.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Then went Samson down, and his father and his mother, to Timnath, and came to the vineyards of Timnath: and, behold, a young lion roared against him.THE KEY
The lion’s roar is already coming to meet Samson, placing danger in motion before the verse shows what the encounter becomes.
THE MEANING
You meet the instant danger announces its approach: the journey is underway, and the roar comes toward you. The verse stays with the moment before the outcome, letting the threat remain audible and unresolved.
THE ROOT
לִקְרָאתוֹ
liqraʾto
GROWS FROM
קרא
Call or summon; in the phrase לִקְרָאתוֹ (liqraʾto), come toward him or meet him.
Beneath “against him” is a directional phrase: “toward him” or “to meet him.” The root’s language of calling and encounter makes the danger more than hostility in the abstract: the roar is coming into Samson’s path.
ALSO GROWS
qara: Call, summon, or proclaim.
קָרָא
The root’s sense of calling gives the encounter direction: something is coming toward Samson.
miqra: Assembly or convocation.
מִקְרָא
This branch carries the sense of people called together, showing how the root can name an encounter or gathering.
שֹׁאֵג
shoʾeg
GROWS FROM
שאג
To roar or bellow.
“roared” in this verse is shoʾeg. The lion’s roar is an action in its own right, making the threat audible before any attack is described. The same root can name both the roaring and the roar itself.
ALSO GROWS
shaʾag: To roar.
שָׁאַג
This verb names the lion’s sound as an active declaration of its presence.
sheʾagat: Roaring of, as in “the roaring of” a lion.
שְׁאַגַת
This noun form makes the sound a recognizable event, not merely a quality of the lion.
THE PATTERN
A roar makes danger audible before its attack is described.
Will a lion roar in the forest, when he has no prey? Will a young lion give his voice from his den, if he has caught nothing?They gape at me with their mouths, a lion tearing and roaring.THE THREAD
And the burning of the LORD's anger flared against Moses, and he said, Is not Aaron the Levite your brother? I know that he speaks well. And also, behold, he is going out to meet you, and when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart.Exodus uses the same קרא (qara, call) construction when Aaron comes out “to meet thee.” The shared root names movement into an encounter; there it brings gladness, while in Judges the approaching roar makes the encounter dangerous.
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