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
Then said Laban to Jacob, Is it because my brother, thou art, that thou shouldst serve me for naught? Come tell me! What shall be thy wages?
Then said Leah. God hath given my hire, in that I gave my handmaid to my husband. So she called his name, Issachar.
Let me pass through all thy flock to-day, removing from thence every young one that is speckled and spotted and every young one that is dark-coloured among the young sheep, and spotted and speckled among the goats, and they shall he my wages.
If thus he saith, The speckled, shall be thy wages, then do all the flock bring forth speckled, - But if thus he saith, The ring-straked, shall be thy wages, then do all the flock bring forth ring-straked.
But now, hath Yahweh spoken saying, In three years, - as the years of a hireling, shall the glory of Moab be diminished, with all the great multitude, - even a very small remnant, of no account.
Even her hirelings in her midst are like fatted calves, For, even they, have turned - have fled at once! have made no stand! For, their day of doom, hath come upon them, The time of their visitation.
Therefore will I draw near unto you for judgment, and will become a swift witness against the mutterers of incantations, and against the adulterers, and against them that swear to a falsehood, - and against them who rob the hire of the hireling, the widow and the fatherless, and that drive away the sojourner, and do not revere me, saith Yahweh of hosts.
The hireling, even because he is no shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, vieweth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth, - and, the wolf, seizeth them and scattereth, -
The hireling, even because he is no shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, vieweth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth, - and, the wolf, seizeth them and scattereth, - Because, a hireling, he is, and hath no care for the sheep.