Lives of Scripture

Anna, a prophetess of the tribe of Asher, is introduced with striking detail about her long life of devotion: married only seven years before becoming a widow, she had lived to the age of eighty-four (or, on another reading of the Greek, as a widow for eighty-four years total), and 'never left the temple, serving night and day with fastings and prayers' (Luke 2:36-37). Coming up 'at that very moment' Simeon was blessing the infant Jesus at His presentation in the temple, Anna, too, recognized who this child was (2:38). Luke records that she 'continued to give thanks to God, and continued to speak of Him to all those who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem' (2:38) -- becoming, alongside Simeon, one of the first people to publicly proclaim the infant Jesus as the fulfillment of Israel's long-awaited hope, and doing so specifically to others who shared that same hope. Luke gives Anna no other scene, but her introduction as a prophetess, alongside her extraordinary decades of unbroken temple devotion through fasting and prayer, marks her as a woman of deep spiritual authority in her community. Her recognition of Jesus and immediate testimony to others, arriving at the temple in that exact providential moment, complements Simeon's prophecy and shows God confirming His Son's identity to Israel's faithful, watching remnant through the witness of both a man and a woman at the very start of Jesus' earthly life.