‘ Then Samson went down, and his father and his mother, to Timnah, and came to the vineyards of Timnah, and, behold, a young lion roared against him.'
It is clear that they made their separate ways to Timnah so that his parents were not with him when he met the ‘young lion', or possibly that he had lingered behind, gathering grapes, so that they were ahead and were not aware of his doings, hidden by the trees. ‘A young lion.' This means a young lion at its most dangerous, eager and ready for the hunt, in the prime of life (Psalms 104:21; Proverbs 20:2; Isaiah 5:29; Jeremiah 2:15). ‘Roared against him' signified his direct designs on Samson. Perhaps the young lion was intended to strengthen his courage in the face of what was to come, or in order to manifest Yahweh's approval of his actions, or indeed both. They were in the vineyards of Timnah. It was a land of many lions (1Sa 17:34; 2 Samuel 23:20; 1 Kings 13:24) and flourishing vineyards.