Luke 2:36

Ἄννα. The same name as Hannah (1 Samuel 1:20), from the root Chânan, ‘he was gracious.’

προφῆτις. The predicate in apposition usually has the article, as in Ἰωάννην τὸν βαπτιστήν, Ἄγριππα ὁ βασιλεύς. But it is sometimes omitted where there is no desire to distinguish a person from others, as in Σίμων βυρσεύς, Acts 10:32. Comp. Luke 8:3. Anna was ‘a prophetess’ like Miriam, Deborah, Huldah (2 Chronicles 34:22).

Φανουήλ. ‘The Face of God;’ the same word as Peniel, Genesis 32:30.

Ἀσήρ. Though the Ten Tribes were lost, individual Jews who belonged to them had preserved their genealogies. Thus Tobit was of the tribe of Naphtali (Tob 1:1). Comp. “our twelve tribes,” Acts 26:7; James 1:1.

ζήσασα. This 1. aor. of ζάω is only found in Hippocrates, and later writers, and in Hellenistic Greek.

ἀπὸ τῆς παρθενίας αὐτῆς. I.e. she had been married only seven years, and was now 84 years old. אABL read ἔως (for ὡς) which is best taken with “of great age,” the intervening words being parenthetic.