Luke 2:36-38 And there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser: she was of a great age… Anna was of the tribe of Asher, and therefore a Galilean. She was eighty-four years of age, and had thus lived through the long sad period of war, conquest, and oppression which had intensified, in every Jewish heart, the yearning for national deliverance by the promised Messiah. Her long life had been spent in pious acts and services. She had never married again a fact, mentioned by St. Luke, in accordance with the feeling of the day, to her honour, but had been, in the words of St. Paul, "a widow indeed," trusting in God, and continuing in supplications and prayers night and day. She might in truth be said to have lived in the Temple; having very likely come from Galilee to be near the holy place, and thus able to give herself up to religious exercises, on the spot, where, in the eyes of a Jew, they were most sacred. Such a woman must have been well known in a place like Jerusalem. Catching the burden of Simeon's words as she passed, she too, like him, forthwith thanks God that the promise of the Messiah is now, at last, fulfilled. There could have been few, however, to whom the glad tidings of such a Saviour were welcome, for, though the heart of the nation was burning with Messianic hopes of a political kind, we are told that Anna was able to tell them to all in Jerusalem who looked for a redemption of a higher type. (Dr. Geikie.) Parallel Verses KJV: And there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser: she was of a great age, and had lived with an husband seven years from her virginity; |
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