Anna was a daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher, and of very great age--eighty-four years. Her age is specially mentioned, to show that, though she had passed but few years in the married state, she had reached this advanced age as a widow; a fact redounding to her honor in a moral sense, and ranking her among the comparatively small number of “widows indeed,” whom Paul especially commends. It is somewhat remarkable that the name of Anna’s father should be mentioned, and not that of her husband. Perhaps her father survived her husband, and may also have been known as one who waited for the consolation of Israel. The pious words Anna uttered in the presence of Mary and her child in the court of the women can not be the only reason of her being called a prophetess. Such an appellation must have been caused by some earlier and frequent utterances, dictated by the Spirit of prophecy, by reason of which she ranked among the list of holy women who, both in earlier and later times, were chosen instruments of the Holy Spirit. If the spirit of prophecy had departed from Israel since the time of Malachi, according to the opinion of the Jews, the return of this Spirit might be looked upon as one of the tokens of Messiah’s advent. In Simeon and Anna we see incarnate types of the expectation of salvation under the Old Testament, as in the child Jesus the salvation itself is manifested. At the extreme limits of life, they stand in striking contrast to the infant Saviour, exemplifying the Old Covenant decaying and waxing old before the New, which is to grow and remain. Old age grows youthful, both in Simeon and Anna, at the sight of the Saviour; while the youthful Mary grows inwardly older and riper, as Simeon lifts up before her eyes the veil hanging upon the future. Joseph and Mary marveled at the revelations, not because they learned from Simeon’s prophecy anything they had not heard before, but they were struck and charmed by the new aspect under which this salvation was presented. There is something very beautiful in this aged Anna, the prophetess, who “departed not from the Temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day.” And the reason given for this consecrated devotion is, she “looked for redemption in Jerusalem.” This aged saint, into whose obscure but loyal keeping the spirit of true religion has always retired in times of a degenerate and formal faith, under the Divine Spirit, refused to depart from the courts of the sanctuary day nor night. Many a long and weary year she had waited for redemption in Jerusalem, and had watched with eager eyes the long procession of fathers and mothers as they presented, according to custom, their first-born at the altar steps. But the Child for whose coming she had waited with such spiritual patience had not come.