John Calvin Commentary Luke 2:37

"and she had been a widow even unto fourscore and four years), who departed not from the temple, worshipping with fastings and supplications night and day." — Luke 2:37 (ASV)

She departed not from the temple. This is a hyperbolical expression; but the meaning is plain that Anna was almost constantly in the temple. Luke adds that she worshipped God with fastings and prayers day and night. Hence we infer that she did not visit the temple for the mere purpose of performing the outward service, but that she added to it the other exercises of piety.

It deserves our attention that the same rule is not prescribed for all, and that all ought not to be led indiscriminately to copy those performances which are here commended in a widow. Each person ought to make a judicious inquiry into what belongs to his own calling. Silly ambition has filled the world with apes, from superstitious persons seizing, with more “zeal” than “knowledges” (Romans 10:2), everything that they hear praised in the saints, as if the distinction of rank did not render a selection of employments necessary, so that each person may answer to his own calling. What is related here of Anna, Paul applies in a particular manner to widows (1 Timothy 5:5), so that married people act foolishly if they regulate their life by an unsuitable model.

But another doubt still remains. Luke appears to make fastings a part of divine worship. But we must observe that of the acts which relate to worship, some are simply required and, as we are accustomed to say, are in themselves necessary, while others are accessory and have no other design than to aid the former class. Prayers belong strictly to the worship of God. Fasting is a subordinate aid, which is pleasing to God only to the extent that it aids the earnestness and fervency of prayer.

We must adhere to this rule: that the duties of men are to be judged according to how they are directed to a proper and lawful end. We must also adhere to this distinction: that prayers are a direct worship of God, while fastings are a part of worship only on account of their consequences. Nor is there any reason to doubt that the holy woman employed fastings as a stimulus to bewail those calamities of the Church which then existed.