The Fallible Study Bible

The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible

Luke2:36–38

The Prophecy of Anna

✦ Public-domain source — quoted & attributed⚙ AI synthesis — generated, verify

Luke 2:36–38 — The Prophecy of Anna. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.

36

There was also a prophetess named Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher, who was well along in years. She had been married for seven years,

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

ēn Kai prophētis Hanna thygatēr Phanouēl ek phylēs Asēr hautē probebēkuia pollais en hēmerais zēsasa meta andros apo autēs tēs parthenias hepta etē

Word by word23 · parsed
ἦνēnThere wasG1510
√ εἰμί — I exist (used only when emphatic)VerbImperfect Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
ΚαὶKaialsoG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
Simple connective, yet it links Anna to Simeon: she is the second witness, not a fresh scene.
προφῆτιςprophētisa prophetessG4398
√ προφῆτις — a female foreteller or an inspired womanNounNominative Feminine Singular
προφῆτις: a female foreteller, an inspired woman Luke's first word about Anna is her office, not her name. Ellicott presses the oddity: a woman is recognised as a prophetess "at a time when no man is recognised as a prophet." JFB hears in her the sign that "the last times" of Joel's outpouring were at hand; Poole dates the silence at "four hundred years before Christ." Barnes is honestly cautious: why she was so called "is not known," and offers three possibilities (a prophet's widow, a temple singer as 1 Chronicles 25:1-2, or genuinely inspired).
ἍνναHanna[named] AnnaG451
√ Ἄννα — Anna, an IsraelitessNounNominative Feminine Singular
Ἅννα: Anna, an Israelitess Gill and Cambridge agree the name is Hannah (חַנָּה, from chanan, "he was gracious"), the Septuagint's spelling at 1 Samuel 1:2. Gill turns the etymology into the woman: "it signifies grace; or gracious: and as was her name, so was she." That a childless-in-widowhood Hannah stands in the sanctuary, fasting and praying, when the child is presented is not a quotation of 1 Samuel but it is the same shape.
θυγάτηρthygatēr[the] daughterG2364
√ θυγάτηρ — a female child, or (by Hebraism) descendant (or inhabitant)NounNominative Feminine Singular
ΦανουήλPhanouēlof PhanuelG5323
√ Φανουήλ — Phanuel (iNounGenitive Masculine Singular
Φανουήλ: Phanuel Gill and Cambridge both identify it with Peniel, "the face of God," the name Jacob gave the ford where he saw God face to face and his life was preserved (Genesis 32:30). Gill makes the christological turn himself: "now Phanuel's daughter both saw and gave the light of the knowledge of God, in the face of Jesus Christ."
ἐκekofG1537
√ ἐκ — literal or figurativePreposition
φυλῆςphylēs[the] tribeG5443
√ φυλή — an offshoot, iNounGenitive Feminine Singular
ἈσήρAsērof AsherG768
√ Ἀσήρ — Aser (iNounGenitive Masculine Singular
Ἀσήρ: Asher Not Judah, and not Levi. Asher went into Assyria with the ten (2 Kings 17:6, cited by Ellicott), yet here a daughter of Asher keeps her genealogy, keeps the feasts, and is the one who names the Messiah in the temple. JFB notes the tribal distinctions were "well enough known up to their final dispersion" and cites Romans 11:1 and Hebrews 7:14. The whole twelve are quietly present at the presentation.
αὕτηhautē[who]G3778
√ οὗτος — the he (she or it), iPersonal / Possessive PronounNominative Feminine Singular
προβεβηκυῖαprobebēkuiawas well alongG4260
√ προβαίνω — to walk forward, iVerbPerfect Participle ActiveNominative Feminine Singular
προβαίνω: to walk forward, be advanced Perfect participle: she has arrived at age and stays there. Luke uses this same rare verb (five verses in the New Testament) only of Zechariah and Elizabeth (Luke 1:7, 1:18), the other aged pair through whom the birth narratives run. In Luke's opening chapters the promise is consistently entrusted to people who have run out of time.
πολλαῖςpollais. . .G4183
√ πολύς — (singular) much (in any respect) or (plural) manyAdjectiveDative Feminine Plural
ἐνeninG1722
√ ἐν — "in," at, (up-)on, by, etcPreposition
Function word inside the Semitic idiom "in days" for "in years."
ἡμέραιςhēmeraisyearsG2250
√ ἡμέρα — day, iNounDative Feminine Plural
ζήσασαzēsasaShe had been marriedG2198
√ ζάω — to live (literally or figuratively)VerbAorist Participle ActiveNominative Feminine Singular
ζάω: to live Aorist participle, the whole married life gathered into one point: seven years, and then the rest. The verb is "lived with," not "was married to"; Gill reads it as a note on her honour, "that she lived honestly, and honourably, with her husband, during the term of her marriage state."
μετὰmeta. . .G3326
√ μετά — properly, denoting accompanimentPreposition
ἀνδρὸςandros. . .G435
√ ἀνήρ — a man (properly as an individual male)NounGenitive Masculine Singular
ἀπὸapo. . .G575
√ ἀπό — "off," iPreposition
αὐτῆςautēs. . .G846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounGenitive Feminine 3rd Person Singular
τῆςtēs. . .G3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleGenitive Feminine Singular
παρθενίαςparthenias. . .G3932
√ παρθενία — maidenhoodNounGenitive Feminine Singular
παρθενία: maidenhood A word that appears nowhere else in the Greek New Testament. It fixes the arithmetic the commentators argue over (Ellicott and Gill reckon her near 106 and 103 respectively) and, more than that, it sets her whole life between two poles: from virginity, seven years, then eighty-four years of waiting.
ἑπτὰheptafor sevenG2033
√ ἑπτά — sevenAdjectiveAccusative Neuter Plural
ἔτηetēyearsG2094
√ ἔτος — a yearNounAccusative Neuter Plural
37

and then was a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple, but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

kai autē chēra heōs ogdoēkonta tessarōn etōn hē ouk aphistato tou hierou latreuousa nykta kai hēmeran nēsteiais kai deēsesin

Word by word19 · parsed
καὶkaiand thenG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
αὐτὴautēG846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounNominative Feminine 3rd Person Singular
χήραchēra[was] a widowG5503
√ χήρα — a widow (as lacking a husband), literally or figurativelyNounNominative Feminine Singular
χήρα: a widow, as lacking a husband The legal category of the unprotected in Israel (Deuteronomy 10:18; Exodus 22:22). Luke will build on it: the widow of Zarephath (Luke 4:25-26), the widow of Nain, the widow's mite, the widow and the unjust judge. Anna is the first, and she is the pattern for all of them: the one with no standing is the one given the word.
ἕωςheōs[to the age of]G2193
√ ἕως — a conjunction, preposition and adverb of continuance, until (of time and place)Preposition
ἕως: until, as far as The preposition on which her age hangs. On the reading of א A B L that Cambridge cites, the eighty-four years measure the widowhood, not the life, and Anna has been waiting in the temple courts for longer than most of the people in them have been alive.
ὀγδοήκονταogdoēkontaeighty-fourG3589
√ ὀγδοήκοντα — ten times eightAdjectiveGenitive Neuter Plural
τεσσάρωνtessarōn. . .G5064
√ τέσσαρες — fourAdjectiveGenitive Neuter Plural
ἐτῶνetōn. . .G2094
√ ἔτος — a yearNounGenitive Neuter Plural
ἣhē[She]G3739
√ ὅς — the relatively (sometimes demonstrative) pronoun, who, which, what, thatPersonal / Relative PronounNominative Feminine Singular
οὐκoukvvvG3756
√ οὐ — the absolute negative (compare G3361 (μή)) adverbAdverb
The absolute negative, attached to a habitual imperfect: not once, across those years.
ἀφίστατοaphistatonever leftG868
√ ἀφίστημι — to remove, iVerbImperfect Indicative Middle or Passive3rd Person Singular
ἀφίστημι: to remove, withdraw, stand away Imperfect middle: a settled refusal to take herself away. The same verb elsewhere in the New Testament carries the sense of departing from the faith (1 Timothy 4:1; Hebrews 3:12). Luke's negative here is therefore stronger than habit: she is the opposite of the one who stands off.
τοῦtoutheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleGenitive Neuter Singular
ἱεροῦhieroutempleG2411
√ ἱερόν — a sacred place, iNounGenitive Neuter Singular
ἱερόν: a sacred place, the temple precinct The word is the whole temple complex and its courts, not the sanctuary building (naos); this is why Gill insists she must have been outside it a moment before, since verse 38 has her coming in.
λατρεύουσαlatreuousa[but] worshipedG3000
√ λατρεύω — to minister (to God), iVerbPresent Participle ActiveNominative Feminine Singular
λατρεύω: to minister, to render cultic service to God The verb of priestly service, in a present participle of unbroken action. Paul uses it of his own service "night and day" (Acts 26:7; 2 Timothy 1:3), and Hebrews of the worship of the tabernacle. In Luke's temple, the service that actually matters at this hour is being rendered by an old widow of a lost tribe.
νύκταnyktanightG3571
√ νύξ — "night" (literally or figuratively)NounAccusative Feminine Singular
καὶkaiandG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ἡμέρανhēmerandayG2250
√ ἡμέρα — day, iNounAccusative Feminine Singular
νηστείαιςnēsteiaisfastingG3521
√ νηστεία — abstinence (from lack of food, or voluntary and religious)NounDative Feminine Plural
νηστεία: abstinence from food, voluntary and religious Cambridge supplies the honest historical frame: the Law appointed one annual fast, the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16:29), and everything beyond that is later practice. Gill hears both the twice-weekly Pharisaic fasts and the public ones. The text itself makes no claim about frequency, only about accompaniment: her petitions came with fasting.
καὶkaiandG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
δεήσεσινdeēsesinprayingG1162
√ δέησις — a petitionNounDative Feminine Plural
δέησις: a petition Specific request, not general devotion. Anna's decades of deēseis and the word she speaks in verse 38 are the same subject seen twice: she asked for the redemption of Jerusalem, and then she announced it.
38

Coming forward at that moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the Child to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

kai epistasa tē hōra autē anthōmologeito tō Theō kai elalei peri autou pasin tois prosdechomenois lytrōsin Ierousalēm

Word by word17 · parsed
καὶkaiG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ἐπιστᾶσαepistasaComing forwardG2186
√ ἐφίστημι — to stand upon, iVerbAorist Participle ActiveNominative Feminine Singular
ἐφίστημι: to stand upon, come suddenly upon Aorist participle of arrival. The same verb brings the angel upon the shepherds (Luke 2:9) and later the two men to the tomb (Luke 24:4). Anna's entrance is narrated with the vocabulary of visitation, though she is the one arriving, not a messenger from heaven.
τῇtēat thatG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleDative Feminine Singular
ὥρᾳhōramomentG5610
√ ὥρα — an "hour" (literally or figuratively)NounDative Feminine Singular
ὥρα: an hour Dative of time with the intensive pronoun: "at that very hour." Poole hears providence in it, that she came in "at that instant where Simeon took up Christ in his arms"; JFB adds the sober observation that at an hour of prayer the courts would have been full, which supplies the audience the next clause requires.
αὐτῇautēsheG846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounDative Feminine 3rd Person Singular
ἀνθωμολογεῖτοanthōmologeitogave thanksG437
√ ἀνθομολογέομαι — to confess in turn, iVerbImperfect Indicative Middle or Passive3rd Person Singular
ἀνθομολογέομαι: to confess in turn A word that stands in only this verse in the New Testament, carrying ἀντι, "in answer." Ellicott finds the same use in the Greek of Psalm 79:13, where the sheep of God's pasture give thanks forever. Benson's reading follows the prefix: Anna's praise is the antiphon to Simeon's, and Luke has now given the temple both voices, a man's and a woman's.
τῷtōG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleDative Masculine Singular
ΘεῷTheōto GodG2316
√ θεός — figuratively, a magistrateNounDative Masculine Singular
θεός: God Dative of the one addressed, and the object of the priestly verb in the previous verse: the latreia she has rendered night and day is now answered by a confession made back to the same God. She confesses to Him before she speaks to anyone else, and Luke keeps that order in the sentence (ἀνθωμολογεῖτο τῷ Θεῷ, then ἐλάλει περὶ αὐτοῦ). The older English the commentators quote reads "unto the Lord" here (so Benson, Poole, Gill and Geneva); the Greek before us has τῷ Θεῷ.
καὶkaiandG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ἐλάλειelaleispokeG2980
√ λαλέω — to talk, iVerbImperfect Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
λαλέω: to talk, to speak Imperfect: she kept on speaking. No sentence of hers survives. Luke names her, dates her, tribes her, and then records only that she would not stop talking about the Child.
περὶperiaboutG4012
√ περί — properly, through (all over), iPreposition
αὐτοῦautou[the Child]G846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounGenitive Masculine 3rd Person Singular
πᾶσινpasinto allG3956
√ πᾶς — all, any, every, the wholeAdjectiveDative Masculine Plural
τοῖςtoiswhoG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleDative Masculine Plural
προσδεχομένοιςprosdechomenoiswere waiting forG4327
√ προσδέχομαι — to admit (to intercourse, hospitality, credence, or (figuratively) endurance)VerbPresent Participle Middle or PassiveDative Masculine Plural
προσδέχομαι: to receive toward oneself, to wait for Present middle participle, a whole company defined by what it is reaching out to take. Simeon was one of them (Luke 2:25); Joseph of Arimathea is another (Luke 23:51). The faithful remnant in Luke is identified not by party or tribe but by expectation.
λύτρωσινlytrōsin[the] redemptionG3085
√ λύτρωσις — a ransoming (figuratively)NounAccusative Feminine Singular
λύτρωσις: a ransoming One of only three verses in the New Testament with this noun, and Luke has already used it of Zechariah's God who "has visited and redeemed his people" (Luke 1:68). The third is Hebrews 9:12, where the ransoming is called eternal and its price is named as blood. Gill reads the abstract as concrete: by the redemption "they were looking for, is meant, the Redeemer."
ἸερουσαλήμIerousalēmof JerusalemG2419
√ Ἱερουσαλήμ — Hierusalem (iNounGenitive Feminine Singular
Ἱερουσαλήμ: Jerusalem The Semitic form of the name, which Luke prefers in the infancy narratives. What the remnant waits for is the ransoming of a city, and the announcement is made inside that city's temple to people standing in it.

The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.

⚙

Grand Commentary — the unit, read whole

synthesis · verify

AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.

i. A prophetess when there is no prophet — Luke 2:36

Luke tells us what Anna is before he tells us who she is: προφῆτις stands ahead of Ἅννα in the Greek. Ellicott marks the strangeness of it, that we find a woman recognised as a prophetess at a time when no man is recognised as a prophet; Poole dates the drought at four hundred years and says that about Christ's coming prophecy "began to revive." JFB reads her as evidence that "the last times" of the promised outpouring were at hand. ⚙ What the Verifier can add is that the noun itself is nearly unused: προφῆτις stands in only two verses of the Greek New Testament, here and Revelation 2:20, where it labels a false one. Luke's genealogy for her is also pointedly wrong for the job: not Judah, not Levi, but Ἀσήρ, one of the ten carried into Assyria (2 Kings 17:6), which Poole calls "one of the meanest tribes." Cambridge and Pulpit both explain that individual families had kept their descent; Barnes is honest that why she is called a prophetess "is not known," and lists three possibilities without choosing. The one thing the text does not do is explain her.

ii. Eighty-four years of supplication — Luke 2:37

The arithmetic is disputed and the commentators say so. Cambridge records the manuscript ground, that א A B L read ἕως for ὡς, which makes the eighty-four the length of the widowhood; on that reading Ellicott puts her at 106 and Gill at 103 or more, while Barnes keeps the simpler sense that she was 84. ⚙ We do not decide it. What the parse does settle is the character of the waiting: οὐκ ἀφίστατο is an imperfect middle, a standing refusal to withdraw herself, and λατρεύουσα is the present participle of latreuō, the verb for priestly service. Benson denies residence outright, since "none lived there save the priests and Levites"; Ellicott and Pulpit raise the alternative that a chamber was assigned her as it apparently was to Huldah (2 Chronicles 34:22), and Pulpit is candid that the picture of her trimming lamps is a rabbinic notion about Deborah carried over. Cambridge corrects the translation of δεήσεσιν: "Rather, supplications (a more special word)." These were requests, with an object, repeated night and day for decades. Verse 38 names the object.

iii. The answering voice — Luke 2:38

Simeon has just spoken. ἀνθωμολογεῖτο (G437) carries ἀντι, "in return": Ellicott notes the word occurs here only in the New Testament and appears in this sense in the Greek of Psalm 79:13, and Benson reads Anna's praise as "a kind of response, or counterpart" to Simeon's. JFB puts her in the moment, standing by as his testimony died away, "ready to take it up in turn," and adds the plain logistical point that at an hour of prayer the courts would supply her an audience. ⚙ Both of her verbs are imperfect: she kept confessing and kept speaking, which is why Benson and Gill extend the speaking past that hour. The content is named by its object, λύτρωσιν Ἰερουσαλήμ, which Ellicott reports as the better-attested reading and the counterpart of Simeon's "consolation of Israel" (Luke 2:25); Cambridge grants only that "The readings vary." Gill collapses the abstract into a person: by the redemption they were looking for "is meant, the Redeemer." Luke preserves not one word she said. The first person in his Gospel to go and tell people about Jesus is an unquoted old widow.

Read under Sola Scriptura — this tool’s own fallible reading (⚙)

⚙ Fallible, offered to be tested. Read the three verses as a single sentence about credentials. Anna has none that the temple counts. She is a woman where the office is male, of Asher where the priesthood is Levi and the kingdom is Judah, a widow where standing comes through a husband, and old where the future belongs to the young. Luke spends more words on her disqualifications than on her message, and then records her message not at all. What she does have is a verb in the imperfect: for eighty-four years she did not withdraw, and she asked. And when the answer walks in, carried by parents too poor for a lamb (Luke 2:24; Leviticus 12:8), she does two things in order, ἀνθωμολογεῖτο τῷ Θεῷ and then ἐλάλει περὶ αὐτοῦ: she answers God, then she tells everyone. That order is the whole of it. Note also what the redemption is not. She does not announce a redemption from Rome; she announces λύτρωσιν, a ransoming, to people already waiting to receive one, and the only other place the New Testament uses that noun outside Luke it names a price paid in blood and calls it eternal (Hebrews 9:12). The temple's true ministry that day was rendered by someone with no right to render it, and the last prophet of the old covenant's silence turned out to be a woman nobody had to listen to.

Interpretive line, not Scripture: she had no standing, only an unbroken imperfect tense, and it was enough to be standing there when the answer arrived.

⚙

Canonical Threads — out to the whole of Scripture

cross-refs · verify

AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.

λύτρωσις: the ransoming Zechariah sang and Hebrews prices verbal / quotation: confirmed

The noun Anna's hearers are waiting for, λύτρωσιν (G3085), stands in only three verses of the Greek New Testament. Luke has already used one of them, in Zechariah's Benedictus, where God "has visited and accomplished redemption for His people" (Luke 1:68), so that the same word opens and closes Luke's infancy testimony. The third is Hebrews 9:12, where the ransoming is obtained not with the blood of goats and calves but with Christ's own, and is called eternal. ⚙ Anna's decades of δεήσεις ask for a thing the New Testament uses this rare word for exactly twice more, and the second time it names the price. Gill already reads the abstract as a person: the redemption looked for "is meant, the Redeemer."

Luke 1:68 · Hebrews 9:12

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexeme G3085 λύτρωσις, a rare word standing in only 3 verses (Luke 1:68, Luke 2:38, Hebrews 9:12). Greek to Greek throughout, so the lexical identity is real; this is a rare-word link, not a quotation of one text by another.

Asher, kept in the reckoning verbal / quotation: confirmed

Ellicott, Poole, JFB, Gill, Cambridge and Pulpit all pause on the tribe. Asher went into Assyria with the ten (2 Kings 17:6), and a daughter of Asher is nonetheless standing in the temple with her descent intact. ⚙ The Verifier finds the same proper name in only one other place in the Greek New Testament: Revelation 7:6, where twelve thousand of the tribe of Asher are sealed. The lost tribe that turns up at the presentation is the lost tribe that turns up in the sealing. Luke does not draw the line and neither does John; the shared rare name is the whole of what is recorded here.

Revelation 7:6

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexemes G768 Ἀσήρ, a rare proper name in only 2 verses (Luke 2:36, Revelation 7:6), and G5443 φυλή (in 23 vv). Greek to Greek; a rare-lexeme link, with no claim that either text cites the other.

"Advanced in days": Luke's vocabulary for people out of time verbal / quotation: confirmed

προβεβηκυῖα ἐν ἡμέραις πολλαῖς uses probainō (G4260), a verb standing in five verses of the Greek New Testament. Two of them are Luke's own, and both describe the other aged pair of his first two chapters: Zechariah and Elizabeth "were both well along in years" (Luke 1:7), and Zechariah pleads it back to Gabriel (Luke 1:18). Gill sends the reader to Luke 1:7 for this exact phrase. ⚙ In Luke's infancy narrative the promise is repeatedly handed to people whose time has run out, and this rare verb is the marker he uses for them. The other two occurrences (Matthew 4:21; Mark 1:19) are geographic, of Jesus going on from there, and carry none of this sense.

Luke 1:7 · Luke 1:18

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexeme G4260 προβαίνω (in 5 vv) plus G2250 ἡμέρα (in 368 vv, common and not load-bearing). Greek to Greek, within Luke's own diction; a rare-verb link, not a quotation.

The line of Israel's prophesying women structural / thematic: confirmed

Poole names Deborah, Miriam and Huldah; Cambridge names Miriam, Deborah, Huldah and cites 2 Chronicles 34:22; Gill adds Miriam "the sister of Moses and Aaron," Deborah "the wife of Lapidoth," and Huldah "the wife of Shallum"; Pulpit adds Hannah and says of such women that they were "never numerous." ⚙ Miriam takes the timbrel after the sea (Exodus 15:20), Deborah judges Israel (Judges 4:4), Huldah is consulted by the king's men in Jerusalem (2 Kings 22:14, with 2 Chronicles 34:22), and Anna stands at the end of that line at the moment the line ends. No verbal link is claimed or possible: the Gospel is Greek and these are Hebrew, so no shared Strong's number exists between them. The basis is the named pattern that five commentators record independently.

Exodus 15:20 · Judges 4:4 · 2 Kings 22:14

basis: Cross-Testament (Greek to Hebrew): shared Strong's numbers are impossible across the language boundary, so no verbal tier is available. Basis is the shared office and pattern of the prophesying woman in Israel, named explicitly in this unit by Poole, Gill, Cambridge, Barnes and Pulpit.

The redemption of Jerusalem structural / thematic: confirmed

The object of the waiting is λύτρωσιν Ἰερουσαλήμ, which Ellicott takes as the better-attested reading and the counterpart of Simeon's "consolation of Israel." ⚙ The prophets who put those two words together are Isaiah and the Psalms: "the LORD has comforted His people, He has redeemed Jerusalem" (Isaiah 52:9), the comfort spoken to Jerusalem that her warfare is ended (Isaiah 40:2), and Israel told to hope in the LORD because "with Him is abundant redemption" and He will redeem Israel from all iniquity (Psalm 130:7-8). Luke quotes none of these here. The link is the phrase's home in the prophets, and the last of them sets the terms: the redemption in view is from iniquity.

Isaiah 52:9 · Isaiah 40:2 · Psalm 130:7-8

basis: Cross-Testament (Greek to Hebrew), so no shared Strong's lexeme can be computed and no verbal tier is available. Basis is the motif of the comforting and ransoming of Jerusalem, which supplies the vocabulary of Luke 2:25 and 2:38; Luke makes no formal quotation.

Hannah at the sanctuary door typological

Gill and Cambridge both record that Ἅννα is Hannah, the Septuagint's spelling at 1 Samuel 1:2, from the root meaning "he was gracious"; Pulpit notes the name "is the same as that of the mother of Samuel." ⚙ Taken with Luke's scene the parallels stack up without being asserted by Luke: a woman at the sanctuary in bitterness of soul, praying and not eating (1 Samuel 1:9-12), a child brought to the house of the LORD and given over, and a woman's song of reversal. Anna's own song is the one thing Luke withholds. Gill also notes the women who assembled at the door of the tabernacle (Exodus 38:8), whom the Targums render "who came to pray" and the Septuagint "that fasted," and says "Anna did both." Psalm 84:4 supplies the blessing she is living out. This is a figural reading, not a claim about Luke's intention.

1 Samuel 1:9-12 · Psalm 84:4 · Exodus 38:8

basis: Cross-Testament, so no shared Strong's lexeme is computable. Basis is the shared name (Gill and Cambridge both identify Ἅννα with Hannah via the LXX of 1 Samuel 1:2) plus the shared scene of a woman praying and fasting at the sanctuary when a child is presented. Widely-held as an observation about the name; the fuller figural reading is ours.

The widow indeed, night and day structural / thematic: confirmed

JFB says of Anna's fastings and prayers, "See 1Ti 5:5, suggested by this," and Cambridge quotes the verse in full at "night and day": "she that is a widow indeed, and desolate, trusteth in God, and continueth in supplications and prayers night and day." ⚙ The Verifier confirms the shared vocabulary, but the words shared (widow, day) are common, so the weight is not lexical: Paul's description of the enrolled widow reads as a portrait drawn from a woman like this one. Cambridge also cites Acts 26:7 for the same "night and day" service.

1 Timothy 5:5 · Acts 26:7

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexemes G5503 χήρα (in 24 vv) and G2250 ἡμέρα (in 368 vv) with 1 Timothy 5:5. Both are common words, so the verbal tier is not warranted; the link is the shared portrait of the widow serving night and day, recorded independently by JFB and Cambridge.

Asher's blessing, and how far the ten tribes survived flagged: verify source

Asher is named at birth for happiness (Genesis 30:13) and blessed with oil, iron and bronze and strength equal to his days (Deuteronomy 33:24-25). The commentators go further and assert that members of the northern tribes preserved genealogies through the exile: Ellicott supports it from a family of Naphtali "at Nineveh" citing Tobit 1:2 and 1:9, Cambridge cites Tobit 1:1, JFB says "many were not carried captive" and cites Romans 11:1 and Hebrews 7:14, Poole appeals to Jeremiah, and Gill says some of the ten returned with Judah and Benjamin. ⚙ Flagged, not because the tribal claim is impossible (Acts 26:7 and James 1:1 do speak of twelve tribes) but because the specific evidential prop offered by Ellicott and Cambridge is Tobit, a book outside the canon, and Poole's citation "Jeremiah 1:4" does not match the text he paraphrases (the sense is Jeremiah 50:4). Luke asserts only that she was of the tribe of Asher; the historical reconstruction around it is the commentators' and should be verified before it is repeated.

Genesis 30:13 · Deuteronomy 33:24-25 · 2 Kings 17:6 · Acts 26:7

basis: Cross-Testament, so no shared Strong's lexeme is computable and no verbal tier is available. The Genesis and Deuteronomy links are the plain background of the tribal name; the flag is on the supporting claim, whose evidence in Ellicott and Cambridge is Tobit (non-canonical) and whose citation in Poole (Jeremiah 1:4) appears to be a misprint.

⚙Christ in the Unittypology · verify

AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.

The redemption is a person, and He is being carried past her ancient/widely-held

Anna speaks "to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem." Gill will not leave λύτρωσιν abstract: "By the redemption they were looking for, is meant, the Redeemer; as by salvation, the Saviour, in Luke 2:30." JFB puts the same thing in Anna's mouth: "In that Babe are wrapt up all your expectations." Simeon has already said it in the first person, that his eyes have seen God's salvation (Luke 2:30). ⚙ The grammar cooperates: Luke does not write that she spoke about the redemption, but ἐλάλει περὶ αὐτοῦ, she kept speaking about Him, and then identifies her audience by the thing they were waiting for. The waited-for thing and the spoken-of person are the same in the sentence. This is the plain apostolic reading and is recorded here by Gill, JFB, Benson and Poole alike.

Luke 2:30 · Luke 1:68 · Luke 24:21

What the ransom cost, told by the only other writer to use the word ancient/widely-held

Anna asks for λύτρωσις for eighty-four years. Outside Luke, the New Testament uses that noun once: Hebrews 9:12, where the high priest enters the holy place once for all, not with the blood of goats and calves but with His own, "having obtained eternal redemption." ⚙ The setting sharpens it. Anna is standing in the temple, where the blood of goats and calves is the daily business, and the ransom she has been petitioning for is carried in through the courts as a forty-day-old child whose parents can afford only two birds (Luke 2:24; Leviticus 12:8). The old covenant's own house receives the price that will end its sacrifices. Ellicott, JFB and Gill all tie her word to Simeon's testimony, and Simeon has already named the sword (Luke 2:35); Hebrews supplies what it costs.

Hebrews 9:12 · Luke 2:35 · Leviticus 12:8

Phanuel's daughter and the face of God novel

Cambridge glosses the patronymic soberly: "Phanuel ] 'The Face of God;' the same word as Peniel, Genesis 32:30." Gill takes the further step himself: "now Phanuel's daughter both saw and gave the light of the knowledge of God, in the face of Jesus Christ, and now beheld his face in the flesh, who is God over all, blessed for ever." ⚙ At Peniel Jacob names the ford because he has seen God face to face "and my life is preserved"; here a woman whose father's name is that place looks into the face of a child and then spends her remaining strength telling people what she saw. We hold this loosely: the etymology is sourced and uncontested, Gill's christological turn is his own, and our extension of it beyond his sentence is ours, not the text's stated claim.

Genesis 32:30 · 2 Corinthians 4:6

Two witnesses in the temple, and the law requires two ancient/widely-held

Geneva calls Anna "Another witness besides Simeon, against whom no objection may be brought." Poole sets her in a series: "To the testimony of the angels, the wise men, the shepherds, Simeon, here is added another." Benson hears her ἀνθωμολογεῖτο as "a kind of response, or counterpart" to Simeon's words. ⚙ The legal category is Israel's own: every matter is established by two or three witnesses (Deuteronomy 19:15), a rule Jesus will invoke of His own testimony (John 8:17). At the presentation the two who attest Him are an old man and an old woman with no office between them, and the one word the text gives Anna is a verb of answering back. The pattern (a man and a woman, a priest's scene and a widow's) runs through Luke's first two chapters and is noticed by Poole, Geneva and Henry.

Deuteronomy 19:15 · John 8:17 · Luke 2:25-32

Apparatus & Provenance

The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.

Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:

  • Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible (1834)
  • Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, — (1880s)
  • Charles Ellicott, Commentary for English Readers (1878)
  • Geneva Study Bible, Marginal Notes (1599)
  • Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory (1871)
  • John Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible (1746–63)
  • Joseph Benson, Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1810s)
  • Matthew Henry, Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible (1706)
  • Matthew Poole, Annotations upon the Holy Bible (1685)
  • The Pulpit Commentary, Spence & Exell, eds. (1880s)

Text: BSB (CC0) with the Berean interlinear and Strong's numbering; commentary quotations are verbatim public domain, cited by author. Three things in this unit are genuinely uncertain and are not resolved here. (1) Anna's age. Cambridge records the manuscript basis, that א A B L read ἕως for ὡς in v. 37, which makes the eighty-four years the length of her widowhood; Ellicott then reckons her at 106, Gill at 103 or more, while Barnes reads the simpler "she was about 84 years of age." The Greek preposition alone does not decide it. (2) The reading at the end of v. 38. Ellicott reports that the better manuscripts give "the redemption of Jerusalem" rather than "in Jerusalem"; Cambridge grants only that "The readings vary"; Gill lists the Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic, Persic and a copy of Stephanus giving three different forms. BSB follows "of Jerusalem" and so do we, with the variant noted. (3) Whether Anna lived in the temple. Luke says only that she did not withdraw from it; Benson denies residence outright, Ellicott, Cambridge and Pulpit float an assigned chamber on the analogy of Huldah (2 Chronicles 34:22), and Pulpit is explicit that the lamp-trimming detail is a rabbinic notion about Deborah transferred to her. Two further cautions: the claim that northern-tribe genealogies survived the exile rests in Ellicott and Cambridge on Tobit, which is outside the canon, and Poole's citation "Jeremiah 1:4" appears to be a misprint for the sense of Jeremiah 50:4. Henry's entry is a comment on the whole block Luke 2:36-40, not on any single verse. Every ⚙ paragraph is machine synthesis and fallible; every ✦ quotation is the named author's own words, unedited.

✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)