Reference: Hire, Hireling
Hastings
The former is used in AV alongside of its synonym 'wages,' by which it has been supplanted in mod. English as in Ge 31:8 RV (cf. Ge 30:18,32 f. with Ge 29:15; 30:28 etc.). A hireling is a person 'hired' to work for a stipulated wage, such as a field-labourer (Mal 3:5), shepherd (Joh 10:12 f.), or mercenary soldier (Isa 16:14, cf. Jer 46:21). No imputation of unfaithfulness or dishonesty is necessarily conveyed by the term, although these ideas have now become associated with it owing to our Lord's application of the word to an unfaithful shepherd in Joh 10:12-13.
A. R. S. Kennedy.
See Verses Found in Dictionary
And Laban said to Jacob, Because thou are my brother, should thou therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me, what shall thy wages be?
And Leah said, God has given me my hire, because I gave my handmaid to my husband. And she called his name Issachar.
I will pass through all thy flock today, removing from there every speckled and spotted one, and every black one among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the goats, and [of such] shall be my hire.
If he said thus, The speckled shall be thy wages, then all the flock bore speckled, and if he said thus, The ringstreaked shall be thy wages, then all the flock bore ringstreaked.
But now LORD has spoken, saying, Within three years, as the years of a hireling, the glory of Moab shall be brought into contempt, with all his great multitude. And the remnant shall be very small and of no account.
Also her hired men in the midst of her are like calves of the stall, for they also are turned back. They have fled away together. They did not stand, for the day of their calamity has come upon them, the time of their visitation.
And I will come near to you to judgment, and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against the FALSE swearers, and against those who oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the f
But the hired man, and not being the shepherd, whose sheep are not his own, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees. And the wolf catches them, and scatters the sheep.
But the hired man, and not being the shepherd, whose sheep are not his own, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees. And the wolf catches them, and scatters the sheep. But the hireling flees because he is a hireling, and it is no care to him about the sheep.