Fever is both a curse and an illness in these verses. Moses warns that if Israel turns from God, the LORD will smite with “a consumption, and with a fever,” and Leviticus names a “burning ague.” Job and the psalmist both describe a body burned dry. Then comes a different kind of story. In Matthew 8, Jesus enters Peter’s house, finds his wife’s mother “sick of a fever,” and heals her. In Acts 28, Paul prays for the father of Publius, who “lay sick of a fever,” and he is healed too. Matthew 8:14 to 15 is short and plain.
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I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.
The LORD shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew; and they shall pursue thee until thou perish.
My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat.
My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.
And when Jesus was come into Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother laid, and sick of a fever.
And it came to pass, that the father of Publius lay sick of a fever and of a bloody flux: to whom Paul entered in, and prayed, and laid his hands on him, and healed him.
Matthew George Easton, 1897
(Deut. 28:22; Matt. 8:14; Mark 1:30; John 4:52; Acts 28:8), a burning heat, as the word so rendered denotes, which attends all febrile attacks. In all Eastern countries such diseases are very common. Peter’s wife’s mother is said to have suffered from a “great fever” (Luke 4:38), an instance of Luke’s professional exactitude in describing disease. He adopts here the technical medical distinction, as in those times fevers were divided into the “great” and the “less.”