Come and study Holy Scriptures with us as Father Stephen DeYoung teaches verse by verse on the podcast, The Whole Council of God.

Father Stephen is a former Protestant pastor and Bible teacher in the Reformed Church,

but now an Orthodox priest serving at St. George Orthodox Cathedral in Charleston, West Virginia.

Now there was one, Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Fanuel of the tribe of Asher.

She was of a great age and had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity.

So it's not just St. Simeon. It's not sort of St. Simeon is the one lone still faithful guy, right?

We've now got another person. We've got a woman. And so she had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity, meaning she got married as a virgin, probably around the age of 13.

She was married to him for seven years.

And then we find out here, and this woman was a widow of about 84 years,

who did not depart from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day.

So if we take seven years on top of 13, she would have been about 20.

Now she's been a widow for 84 years.

That means she's about 104.

She's about 104 doing that math.

So a very, very, very elderly woman.

But note where she is. She's living in the temple.

She's there day and night. Remember what we talked about when we talked about Mary,

how there were women who were dedicated to the temple who lived there, right?

Mary had to leave because she reached, she reached puberty in the purity laws, right? But the intent would have

been, as we said, that later on in her life, she would have returned. And that's what Anna did. Anna is

obviously, not to be too graphic about it, but she's post-menopause. So the purity

issues are not a concern anymore. So since then, she's been devoted to the temple and living there.

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