An intense fever characterized by chills, common in malaria. The English word shares it origin with “acute.” The “fever” (Deuteronomy 28:22) can “destroy your sight and drain your life” (Leviticus 26:16). Both passages describe punishments the Israelites would suffer if they disobeyed God’s laws.
In early translations of the Septuagint (a Greek translation of the Old Testament), translators used the Greek word for jaundice to render the Hebrew term for ague, likely due to the similar symptoms both illnesses present, particularly in connection with malaria.