Luke 2:36-37
She departed not from the temple
The details are exact: the tribe, the father, seven years of marriage, and eighty-four years of widowhood spent fasting and praying night and day.
People of the Bible
Anna the prophetess
Eighty-four years old, widowed after seven years of marriage, and in the temple when it happened.
Anna gets three verses and every one of them is specific. She is a prophetess, daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher, one of the northern tribes that had been scattered for seven hundred years. She was married seven years and has been a widow ever since, and she departs not from the temple but serves God with fastings and prayers night and day. She comes in at that instant, and she does two things: she gives thanks, and she tells everybody who was waiting.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Anna the prophetess
- 01
- 02
Luke 2:38
She coming in that instant
The timing is the whole verse. She arrives while Simeon is still there, gives thanks to the Lord, and speaks of him to all who looked for redemption in Jerusalem.
- 03
Luke 2:38
To all that looked for redemption
There was a group of people waiting, and she knew who they were. She is the first to carry the news to anyone outside the room.
Why it matters
Luke pairs her with Simeon deliberately, a man and a woman, and gives her the part that carries further. Simeon says his piece and is ready to depart; Anna speaks of the child to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem, which makes her the first person in the gospels to tell anyone else. Her tribe is worth noticing too: Asher had been gone since the Assyrians, and Luke names it without comment.
4 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
