Bible Study Series: Luke 2:36-38. She was in touch with the Spirit and active for God, even at her age.
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In the next link to the original chapter, I comment more and offer the Greek text. At the bottom you will find a “Summary and Conclusion” section geared toward discipleship. Check it out!
In this post, links are provided for further study.
Let’s begin.
Scripture: Luke 2:36-38
36 Next, Anna was a prophetess, a daughter of Phanuel, from the tribe of Asher. She was really advanced in years, living with her husband seven years from her marriage, 37 and she was a widow for eighty-four years. She did not leave the temple, worshipping with fasting and praying night and day. 38 At the very hour, she suddenly appeared praising God and speaking about him to everyone waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem. (Luke 2:36-38)
Comments:
36:
“prophetess”: Here are others: Miriam, the sister of Aaron and Moses (Exod. 15:20; Deborah (Jdg. 4:4); Huldah (2 Kings 22:14; 2 Chron. 34:22); Noahdiah (Neh. 6:14); Isaiah’s wife (Is. 8:3); Philip’s four unmarried daughters (Acts 21:8); Corinthians (1 Cor. 11:4-5; 14:39). Studying their ministries or at least their contexts would be edifying.
“daughter of Phanuel, from the tribe of Asher”: The detailed identity of her father is unknown, but his name is a variation of Penuel or Peniel, which means “face to face with God” or “the face of God.” Jacob wrestled with God and named the place with this word (Gen. 32:22-32). Asher was one of the ten northern tribes, and these ten were the first to be deported under judgment of God (2 Kings 17-18). Luke mentions these people to establish historical and ancestral parameters, to make his account accurate. In other words, he did his homework.
After much research, Richard Bauckham, in his Gospel Women: Studies of the Named Women of the Gospels (Eerdman’s, 2002), Bauckham writes about Phanuel and Anna:
It seems possible therefore that the names Anna and Phanuel belong to an exilic family deeply impressed by the eschatological piety of the book of Tobit. Such a suggestion coheres well with the rest of Luke’s characterization of Anna. Indeed, it is precisely the theology and message of the book of Tobit that forges the closest connection between Anna’s membership of a northern Israelite tribe, her temple-centered piety (Luke 2:37), and her association with those who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem (2:38). No doubt the last group included others who have returned from the diaspora to await in Jerusalem the messianic redemption and the ingathering of the rest of the exiles. (p. 98)
In other words, Tobit, a fictional national hero who in exile prayed for the restoration of Jerusalem, also belonged to a northern tribe, Naphtali. His wife was also named Anna, and their son was Tobias, who had seven sons. His prayer for the restoration of Jerusalem shows his extra devotion, which impressed Luke’s informed Jewish readers of his Gospel, and now Anna and Simeon are about to pray for it too, or show their devotion to it. Luke’s Anna, a real person, associated with extra-pious Jews who returned to Jerusalem and expected the Messiah to come and redeem Jerusalem. However, she did not know (or it is not recorded, if she did predict it) that national Israel, represented by the leaders in Jerusalem, would reject their Messiah, and now the message of redemption was to go out to all of the world. God was interested in the whole globe, not just Jerusalem or the nation of Israel.
After explaining his thorough research, Bauckham concludes the following about Anna:
As a prophet[ess] who devoted her long years of widowhood to religious devotion, who was always seen in the temple courts, Anna would have become a well-known figure in Jerusalem, easily remembered a few decades later in the time of the Jerusalem church. Some who in their youth had been impressed by her prophecies and shared her ardent hopes of redemption of Jerusalem may have joined that church. There is nothing improbable in the idea that she appeared in traditions that reached Luke, directly or indirectly from the Jerusalem church. (p. 99)
In other words, while Luke was gathering his information to write his Gospel, women (and men) in the Jerusalem church would have gladly stepped forward to tell him about Anna. Was Mary, the mother of Jesus, who is a young mother right now, still alive when Luke was in Jerusalem? If so, then she may have been the source of the first two chapters of the Gospel. Or maybe her sons, Jesus’s brother, were the source, and if he had sisters, then they were. We don’t know.
“really advanced in many years”: it literally reads “many days,” but “years” is better to our ears. It just means she was extremely aged, and we will find out how old, shortly.
“from her marriage”: the Greek literally reads “from her virginity.” In other words, girls were virtually secluded in her father’s house, until a boy’s parents (i.e. father) came over to arrange and negotiate a betrothal and then marriage. We live in far different times. Girls are no longer secluded, and there’s nothing wrong with going out in public, but the unintended consequence is that virginity is rare (but still godly and wholesome).
37:
Anna fit the high quality of widows outlined in 1 Timothy 5:3-5:
3 Give proper recognition to those widows who are really in need. 4 But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God. 5 The widow who is really in need and left all alone puts her hope in God and continues night and day to pray and to ask God for help. (1 Tim. 5:3-5, NIV)
Now we can calculate her age, approximately. If she was married at about 14 years, then she was a widow at 21 years. Add 84 to 21 and you get 105 years old! Alternatively, the translation could read: “she was a widow to her eighty-fourth year.” So by that calculation she was eighty-four years old when she met the family of three.
Either way, life spans could go on just as long as today, but back then many children died from diseases and other weaknesses, so they never made it into adulthood. That’s why life expectancy is calculated to be so short. But once a person got out of childhood, he or she could live just as long as the people of today. Anna exceeded most people of our day. Age was not ignored or sneered at back then, as it is today. Luke mentions her age because she was extra-blessed and extra-favored by God. That’s the main point to the ages of the patriarchs and matriarchs in Genesis, and so it is with her. She is like a Genesis matriarch who time-traveled from their days to hers.
Bauckham suggests that Luke intends her to have the older age (105) in keeping with other women and men who lived to such an old age: Simeon, son of Clopas (Jesus’s uncle, believe it or not), second bishop of Jerusalem, martyred at 120 and famous rabbis who lived past one hundred years. Fictional Judith was a Jewish heroine who also refused to remarry but remained a widow until she died at 105. Further, after menopause, Anna would not have to go through impurity exclusion from the temple when she gave birth or during and after her monthly cycle. Now she could stay at the temple every day, all day (pp. 99-101).
“worshipping”: it is related to serving, which can encompass worship (Acts 7:7, 42). But sometimes it is best to translate it as “serving” (Acts 24:14; 26:7). Its meaning is optional—up to you. Interpret it both ways: worship and serve. In Anna’s case she worshipped and served with fastings and prayers.
“prayers”: it means “entreaty, supplication, prayer” (see Luke 1:13 and 5:33). From what she said in the next verse, some of her prayers must have been for the salvation and redemption of her beloved nation, Israel.
“night and day”: of course we are intended to understand that she was extra-devout. But it is clear that she is not self-righteous or that she bragged about herself. After all, Luke got this story many years after she died. Her grand-nieces and nephews must have told him about her. Her devotion and faith are genuine. She loved God all of her days. To put it in modern terms, he was “in church” constantly. How about you and your devotion to the Lord and his kingdom community?
Let’s look at the practice of fasting from a biblical point of view. There are all sorts of ways to fast:
It is interesting that nowhere does it say in the NT that believers should fast to prove their remorse and sorrow for sin. Forgiveness is not added to or enhanced by our outer show of works (fasting is a religious work). Forgiveness of sins is received by repentance and faith in Jesus (Acts 13:38).
38:
Here Luke is elliptical. Clearly the Holy Spirit was on her just as he was on Simeon, particularly since she was a prophetess. That is enough of a signal from Luke that the Spirit is working. (Luke is often elliptical like this. See my commentary on Acts). We are intended to read the story that she appeared in the temple at the same time that Joseph, Mary, and Jesus were there. Then she interrupted, by divine appointment, their performance of their religious requirements. One gets the impression that as soon as Simeon left, Anna stopped them before they took one more step.
The Spirit in the Old Testament
“about him”: That is, the baby. Either Anna held Jesus in her arms or she touched him in one of his parent’s arms. (Would her parents allow such an aged woman to hold him? Maybe. Or maybe not!) Whatever the details, she called for a crowd to gather, or one had already gathered when Simeon was prophesying. The people knew her and her prophetic ministry well enough. As soon as she spoke, a crowd surely gathered, and quickly.
“praising”: this verb is used only here in the NT: In the Greek language long before the NT was written (and at the same time), the verb meant “to make a mutual agreement”; “to confess freely, openly” (Liddell and Scott). As the centuries went on, however, it came to mean “praise” or “thank.”
To go a little deeper in how a first-century Greek reader / listener of Luke’s Gospel might have understood the verb in this context, I like to see its meaning as our standing face to face with God (the object of the verb is God) and interacting with him, declaring him openly and freely by mutual agreement. But since we surrender to him, the God of the universe, we agree with him; he does not have to agree with us. However, let’s be modest and see it as “thank” or “praise.”
Bible Basics about Praise and Worship
Word Study on Praise and Worship
“redemption”: it is used only here, Luke 1:68 and Heb. 9:12). It means “ransoming, releasing, and redemption.” Here Jerusalem was supposed to be bought back by God from its oppressors, and Jesus was thought to be the one to accomplish this mission. But he was about to redeem Jerusalem (and by extension Israel) from its sins. Political freedom is a blessing, but without spiritual redemption of the soul, liberty may lead to licentiousness (1 Pet. 2:16). His bringing about redemption was going on a different but parallel track, unexpected by many politically minded and pious Jews. It was spiritual redemption.
What Is Redemption in the Bible?
GrowApp for Luke 2:36-38
1. Anna’s ministry was being a prophetess and was in the temple all the time. What is your ministry? How can you help your local church?
2. Anna was very old, possibly a centenarian. How do we honor or sometimes dishonor older people in our churches? In society?
3. Anna served and worshipped the Lord with prayers and fastings and praise. How do you serve and worship and praise the Lord? Tell us the practical things you do.
RELATED
Luke’s Birth Narrative: Pagan Myth or Sacred Story?
11. Eyewitness Testimony in Luke’s Gospel
3. Church Fathers and Luke’s Gospel
2. Archaeology and the Synoptic Gospels
1. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels: Introduction to Series
SOURCES
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