As Luck Would Have It (Ruth 2:3)

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³ She went and she came and gleaned in the countryside behind the reapers.

וַתֵּ֤לֶךְ וַתָּבוֹא֙ וַתְּלַקֵּ֣ט בַּשָּׂדֶ֔ה אַחֲרֵ֖י הַקֹּצְרִ֑ים

Keep moving, nothing to see here. That’s exactly what Ruth told Naomi she intended to do:

^{Ruth 2:2} Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Why don’t I go out to the countryside and glean among the stalks behind whoever is nice enough to let me?”

In fact, there is something to see here that I’d like to describe for you. I’m talking about the words וַתֵּ֤לֶךְ וַתָּבוֹא֙ va-télekh va-tavo ‘she went and she came’. Notice the punctuation mark on וַתָּבוֹא֙ marking a pause there within the 4-word phrase. Why not just say, “She went and she gleaned” and so forth? Both Anchor Bible commentaries think “she came” may simply be a mistake, since it is missing in two Greek versions and the Latin and Syriac translations.

The three other times in the Bible that someone “goes and comes” (Jud 19:10, 1 Kgs 14:17, and 2 Kgs 4:25) all have the person “coming” somewhere — that is, arriving at a particular place. There are a few other examples in the plural that do the same. Our verse is the only example where “went … came …” is followed by a third verb. That might be a reason those ancient versions might think it is a mistake.

I beg to differ. What I understand from this is that our author is presenting what I would call (from our 21^st-century perspective) a cinematic effect. She had never seen a movie, but that would not necessarily stop her from visualizing her story — and I think that’s exactly what’s happening here. In between va-télekh and va-tavo, what we have is a scene change.