She appears in only three verses of the Bible. Luke records not one word she said. Most Christmas sermons mention her in a single sentence, if at all.
Yet Anna the prophetess was one of the very first people on earth to recognise the baby Jesus for who He was—and the first person in Luke’s Gospel to tell a crowd about Him.
“And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She did not depart from the temple, worshipping with fasting and prayer night and day. And coming up at that very hour she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.”
Luke 2:36–38
Anna’s story is short, but it is not small. It is the story of a woman whose life was broken early, who refused to let grief turn into bitterness, and who spent decades doing the same quiet things every day—until the morning the Messiah was carried through the door.
In our post on Simeon’s last words, we looked at the old man who took the infant Jesus in his arms and said he was ready to die in peace. Here we turn to the woman who arrived “at that very hour” and deserves far more attention than she usually gets.
IN SHORT
Who: Anna, a widow from the tribe of Asher, called a prophetess, about 84 years old.
Where: The temple in Jerusalem, where she worshipped “with fasting and prayer night and day” (Luke 2:37).
What she did: She recognised the infant Jesus, thanked God, and spoke of Him to everyone waiting for God to redeem Jerusalem.
Why she matters: Her life shows that faithful waiting is never wasted, that grief can become worship, and that God delights to use people the world overlooks.
Who Was Anna the Prophetess?
Luke packs a remarkable amount into three verses. Every detail is there for a reason.
| WHAT LUKE TELLS US | WHY IT’S WORTH NOTICING |
|---|---|
| She was a prophetess | She stands in a line of women through whom God spoke: Miriam, Deborah and Huldah |
| Daughter of Phanuel | Phanuel is the Greek form of Penuel, the place where Jacob said, “I have seen God face to face” (Genesis 32:30) |
| Of the tribe of Asher | Asher was one of the northern tribes often called “lost”. God had kept a remnant from all Israel, not only from Judah |
| Married seven years, then widowed | Her adult life began with a bereavement that shaped everything afterwards |
| Never left the temple | Almost certainly means she was present at every hour of prayer, for decades, rather than that she lived on the premises |
| Spoke of Him to all who were waiting | She is the first person in Luke’s Gospel to tell a group of people about Jesus |
Her name is worth pausing over too. Anna is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Hannah, which means “grace”. A thousand years earlier, another Hannah had prayed at God’s house at Shiloh, pouring out her heart until God gave her a son, Samuel (1 Samuel 1). Luke has already given us Mary’s song, which closely echoes Hannah’s song in 1 Samuel 2. Now a second Hannah appears at God’s house, and the Son she sees is far greater than Samuel.
And she is the daughter of Phanuel—“the face of God”. On that morning in the temple, the daughter of “the face of God” looked into the face of God made flesh.
A Remnant From a “Lost” Tribe
Asher’s territory lay in the far north of Israel, along the coast towards Tyre. When Assyria destroyed the northern kingdom in 722 BC, most of those tribes were scattered and never returned as tribes. That is why people speak of the “ten lost tribes”.
But they were never wholly lost. Even before the exile, “some men of Asher, of Manasseh, and of Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem” to worship (2 Chronicles 30:11). Anna’s family had kept their records and their faith for more than 700 years.
This matters. God had promised that the coming “root of Jesse” would “assemble the banished of Israel, and gather the dispersed of Judah” (Isaiah 11:10–12). When Jesus was presented in the temple, one of the two people who welcomed Him came from Judah’s royal city, and the other came from a tribe the world had written off. The whole of Israel was represented at His welcome.
A Widow Who Did Not Waste Her Grief
Anna had been married for just seven years when her husband died. Most commentators think she was probably widowed in her early twenties. In that culture, a young widow faced real hardship. She had no husband to provide for her, and Luke says nothing about children.
She could have remarried. Scripture would have allowed it (1 Corinthians 7:39). She could have become bitter, and few would have blamed her. Instead, she gave her long widowhood to God.
Paul later describes exactly this kind of woman: “She who is truly a widow, left all alone, has set her hope on God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day” (1 Timothy 5:5). Notice the phrase “night and day”. It is the same phrase Luke uses of Anna. Paul could almost have been describing her.
Anna’s story doesn’t say that grief is easy, or that loss is good. It says that grief handed to God can become something other than a dead end. For more on how sorrow and faith live side by side, see Does Grief Cancel Christian Joy?
A WORD TO THE WIDOWED AND THE ALONE
If you have lost a husband or wife, or you live alone for any other reason, Anna’s life says something important: your life is not over, and it is not second-class.
Some of the most fruitful servants in Scripture were single or widowed. Anna’s years of prayer did not look impressive, but God placed her at the centre of one of the greatest moments in history.
“They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green” (Psalm 92:14).
Night and Day: Faithfulness Nobody Was Filming
Luke says Anna “did not depart from the temple, worshipping with fasting and prayer night and day” (Luke 2:37). She probably did not live there. The point is that she was there at every opportunity—morning and evening sacrifice, the hours of prayer, the feasts—year after year after year.
David had once prayed, “One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple” (Psalm 27:4). Anna lived out that prayer.
Here is the quiet lesson. Anna is found in the temple on the day Jesus arrives because Anna was always in the temple. She had no idea that this would be the day. She simply kept turning up where God had promised to meet His people—in worship, in prayer and in His word.
Christians sometimes call these things “the ordinary means of grace”: hearing and reading the Bible, prayer, gathered worship and the sacraments. On any given day they look unexciting. Anna is the living argument for them. Decades of showing up looked like nothing at all, right up until the morning they meant everything. We explore this in The Ordinary Means of Grace: Why Are They Indispensable?
What Made Anna a Prophetess?
Luke calls Anna a prophetess (Greek prophētis). She wasn’t the first. God had spoken through women before, though they are few, and each appears at a key moment in Israel’s story.
Women the Bible calls prophetesses
| WHO | WHEN | WHAT SHE DID |
|---|---|---|
| Miriam | The exodus (Exodus 15:20) | Led Israel’s women in praise after the crossing of the Red Sea |
| Deborah | The judges (Judges 4:4) | Judged Israel and called Barak to lead the army |
| Huldah | King Josiah’s reign (2 Kings 22:14) | Confirmed that the rediscovered Book of the Law was God’s word |
| Anna | Jesus’ infancy (Luke 2:36) | Gave thanks for the infant Christ and spoke of Him to all who were waiting |
| Philip’s four daughters | The early church (Acts 21:9) | Prophesied in the church at Caesarea |
At Pentecost, Peter quoted Joel’s promise that “your sons and your daughters shall prophesy” (Acts 2:17). Anna stands at the hinge between the two Testaments—the last prophetess of the old era and a foretaste of the new.
What Anna is not doing is holding a teaching office in the temple. She is not a priest, and she does not lead the worship. She is bearing Spirit-given witness to Christ to anyone who will listen. Those are different things, and the Bible keeps them distinct. For how Scripture handles the question of church office, see Can Women Be Pastors and Deacons?
The First to Tell a Crowd About Jesus
“Coming up at that very hour she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem” (Luke 2:38).
Notice the 2 things Anna did. First, she gave thanks to God. Her first response to Jesus was worship. Second, she spoke of Him—and she didn’t stop. The Greek tense suggests she kept on speaking, telling one person after another.
And notice who she told: “all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem”. That phrase takes us back to Isaiah: “Break forth together into singing, you waste places of Jerusalem, for the LORD has comforted his people; he has redeemed Jerusalem” (Isaiah 52:9). There was a faithful remnant in Jerusalem, people who prayed and waited for God to keep His promises. Anna knew them all. Her years in the temple had placed her at the centre of that waiting community, and now she had news for them.
Luke doesn’t record a single word of what she said. The only prophetess in the Christmas story, and her message is not preserved. Her honour is in her faithfulness, not in being quoted. Most Christian faithfulness is like that.
Anna and Simeon: 2 Witnesses to the Same Child
The law of Moses required that a matter be established by 2 witnesses (Deuteronomy 19:15). Luke gives us 2 at the temple: Simeon and Anna. A man and a woman, both old, neither holding any office, both led by God’s Spirit to the same baby.
Luke often pairs a man and a woman this way—Zechariah and Elizabeth, Joseph and Mary, Simeon and Anna. In a world where a woman’s testimony often counted for little, Luke makes a woman half of Israel’s welcome to its Messiah. He doesn’t make a speech about it. He simply records it.
Simeon’s words were about departing in peace; Anna’s response was to tell others. Simeon looked back over a life of waiting and was ready to go. Anna, just as old, went out and spread the news. Both are right responses to seeing Christ.
What Anna Teaches Us Today
- Faithful waiting is never wasted. Anna waited for decades without knowing when, or whether, she would see the answer. God saw every prayer.
- Grief can become worship. Anna’s great loss came early. She brought it to God instead of letting it harden her.
- Keep turning up. The ordinary means of grace—Scripture, prayer, gathered worship—are where God has promised to meet us. Anna was there when He came.
- Older believers matter. Both witnesses in the temple were elderly. God does not retire His servants.
- Thank God, then tell others. Anna’s 2 responses to Jesus are still the right ones: worship Him, and speak of Him to people who are waiting.
Conclusion: The Widow Who Saw the Redemption
For most of her life, Anna had no idea that anyone would ever remember her name. She was an elderly widow from a forgotten tribe, praying in the corner of a busy temple. And then one morning a poor couple came in with a 40-day-old baby, and everything she had prayed for was in front of her.
The same Lord still sees the faithful widow, the lonely believer and the old saint who keeps praying when nothing seems to change. Anna reminds us that God keeps His promises—and that the ones who wait for Him will not be disappointed.
Tough Questions, Honest Answers
Was Anna 84 years old, or a widow for 84 years?
The Greek can be read either way. If she was widowed at about 21 and stayed a widow for 84 years, she would have been over 100. The ESV and most modern translations take the simpler reading: she was 84. Nothing in the meaning of the passage depends on the answer, and it is better to say “we can’t be certain” than to claim a confidence we don’t have. Either way, Luke’s point is the same: a very long stretch of faithful waiting ended in a single morning of joy.
Did Anna actually live in the temple?
Probably not. Luke says she “did not depart from the temple”, but there is no evidence that ordinary women lived within the temple courts. The phrase is most naturally read as meaning she was always there—at the times of prayer and sacrifice, day after day. Luke uses similar language of the disciples after the ascension: they “were continually in the temple blessing God” (Luke 24:53).
Is the tribe of Asher one of the lost tribes of Israel?
Asher was one of the ten northern tribes scattered by Assyria in 722 BC. But individuals and families from those tribes survived and kept their identity. Some from Asher worshipped in Jerusalem in Hezekiah’s day (2 Chronicles 30:11), and Anna’s family still knew their tribe 700 years later. In Revelation 7:6, Asher is listed among the tribes of God’s sealed people.
Is Anna the same person as Hannah in the Old Testament?
No. Hannah, the mother of Samuel, lived around 1100 BC. Anna lived in the 1st century BC and AD. But they share the same name—Anna is the Greek form of Hannah—and Luke seems to want us to hear the echo. Both were women of prayer at God’s house, and both rejoiced over a child God had given.
Why didn’t Luke record what Anna said?
Luke doesn’t explain, but the silence fits his purpose. Simeon’s words interpret who Jesus is; Anna’s role is to spread the news. Luke tells us the content in one line: she spoke of Him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem. Her message was Christ Himself, and that was enough.
Who were those “waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem”?
They were faithful Israelites who believed God would keep His promises to send the Messiah and rescue His people. Simeon was one of them; he was “waiting for the consolation of Israel” (Luke 2:25). Later Luke mentions Joseph of Arimathea, who “was looking for the kingdom of God” (Luke 23:51). They were a praying remnant in a nation that had largely stopped expecting anything.
Does Anna being a prophetess mean women should preach in church today?
Anna gave Spirit-led testimony about Christ to people in the temple courts. She did not hold a teaching office or lead Israel’s worship—those were given to the priests. The New Testament also records women prophesying (Acts 21:9; 1 Corinthians 11:5) while reserving the office of elder for qualified men (1 Timothy 2:12; 3:1–7). Anna’s example shows that God has always used women to speak of His Son, powerfully and publicly, without that settling the separate question of church office.
Related Reads
- Simeon’s Last Words: “Now You Are Letting Your Servant Depart in Peace”
- Can Women Be Pastors and Deacons? What the Bible Says
- The Ordinary Means of Grace: Why Are They Indispensable?
- Does Grief Cancel Christian Joy? Or Can the Two Coexist?
- Where Did Luke Get His Gospel Details? The Case for Mary
- Who Were the Magi? What Scripture Actually Says
- The Bethlehem Connection: Why God Chose a Humble Town For His Son
- The Mystery of Christmas: Why God HAD to Become Man
