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Of the post-Exilian festivals reference is made to the feast of Dedication (John 10:22). This feast was appointed by Judas Maccabaeus in commemoration of the purification of the temple after it had been polluted by Antiochus Epiphanes. The “feast of Purim” (q.v.), Esther 9:24-32, was also instituted after the Exile. (Cf. John 5:1.)‌‌

•FESTUS, PORCIUS the successor of Felix (A.D. 60) as procurator of Judea (Acts 24:27). A few weeks after he had entered on his office the case of Paul, then a prisoner at Caesarea, was reported to him. The “next day,” after he had gone down to Caesarea, he heard Paul defend himself in the presence of Herod Agrippa II. and his sister Bernice, and not finding in him anything worthy of death or of bonds, would have set him free had he not appealed unto Caesar (Acts 25:11, 12). In consequence of this appeal Paul was sent to Rome. Festus, after being in office less than two years, died in Judea. (See AGRIPPA.)

•FEVER (Deuteronomy 28:22; Matthew 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.”

•FIELD (Hebrews sadeh), a cultivated field, but unenclosed. It is applied to any cultivated ground or pasture (Genesis 29:2; 31:4; 34:7), or tillage (Genesis 37:7; 47:24). It is also applied to woodland (Psalm 132:6) or mountain top (Judges 9:32, 36; 2 Samuel 1:21). It denotes sometimes a cultivated region as opposed to the wilderness (Genesis 33:19; 36:35). Unwalled villages or scattered houses are spoken of as “in the fields”

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