Luk 2:37 | NETfull | STEP | She had lived as a widow since then for eighty-four years. She never left the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day.

Luke 2:37

37 She had lived as a widow since then for eighty-four years. ^{▼▼ Grk “living with her husband for seven years from her virginity and she was a widow for eighty four years.” The chronology of the eighty-four years is unclear, since the final phrase could mean “she was widowed until the age of eighty-four” (so BDAG 423 s.v. ἕως 1.b.α). However, the more natural way to take the syntax is as a reference to the length of her widowhood, the subject of the clause, in which case Anna was about 105 years old (so D. L. Bock, Luke [BECNT], 1:251–52; I. H. Marshall, Luke, [NIGTC], 123–24).} She never left the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day. ^{▼▼ The statements about Anna worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day make her extreme piety clear.}