Anna (prophetess, daughter of Phanuel)

In the infancy narrative of Luke's Gospel, we meet an elderly prophetess named Anna, daughter of Phanuel, from the tribe of Asher. She had been married only seven years when her husband died, and she then chose to devote her life completely to God through service in the temple in Jerusalem, with fasting and prayer day and night. When she was 84 years old, Joseph and Mary came to the temple with the child Jesus to present him to the Lord according to the regulations of the Mosaic Law. At the moment Simeon finished his prophetic word over the child, Anna stepped forward, praised God, and testified about the child to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem. In this way, she became among the very first to publicly proclaim that the Messiah had come. That she belonged to the tribe of Asher—one of the northern tribes scattered after Assyria's conquest in 722 BC—underscores that God's salvation applies to all Israel, not just Judah. Anna is the only woman in the New Testament explicitly called a prophetess, and together with Simeon she represents the faithful remnant in Israel: those who held fast to the promises and in patient expectation saw their fulfillment.