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 unto Jacob, Because thou art my brother, shouldest thou therefore serve me for nought? Tell me, what shall thy wages be?
And Leah said, God hath 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 to-day, removing from thence 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 bare speckled: and if he said thus, The ringstreaked shall be thy wages; then bare all the flock ringstreaked.
But now Jehovah hath 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 are fled away together, they did not stand: for the day of their calamity is 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 that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the sojourner from his right , and fear not me, saith Jehovah of hosts.
He that is a hireling, and not a shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, beholdeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth, and the wolf snatcheth them, and scattereth them :
He that is a hireling, and not a shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, beholdeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth, and the wolf snatcheth them, and scattereth them : he fleeth because he is a hireling, and careth not for the sheep.