Fever

Fever appears in both the Old and New Testaments as a common affliction and, in the Mosaic law, as one of the covenant curses that would attend Israel's disobedience: "The LORD will strike you with wasting disease and with fever, inflammation and fiery heat" (Deuteronomy 28:22). The Hebrew term connotes a burning heat. In the ancient world, fevers were poorly understood, often fatal, and carried theological as well as medical significance.

The New Testament records several notable fever healings. Jesus healed Peter's mother-in-law of a great fever at Capernaum (Matthew 8:14; Mark 1:30; Luke 4:38-39), rebuking the fever as he would a demon — a detail that points to his authority over disease as part of his kingdom inauguration. The royal official's son whose fever broke "at the seventh hour" on Jesus's word (John 4:52) and Paul's healing of Publius's father from fever and dysentery on Malta (Acts 28:8) extend this pattern across both Gospels and Acts.