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 will say to Jacob, Because thou art my brother shalt thou serve me gratuitously? announce to me what thy reward.
And Leah will say, God gave me My hire because I gave my maid to my husband: and she will call his name Issachar.
I will pass over among all thy sheep this day, removing from thence every sheep speckled and patched, and every sheep black among the lambs; and the patched and speckled among the she-goats; and it shall be my hire.
If thus he will say, The speckled shall be thy hire; and all the sheep shall bring forth speckled: and if thus he will say, The banded shall be thy hire, and all the sheep will bring forth white-footed.
And now Jehovah spake, saying, In three years as the years of a hireling and the honor of Moab despised with with all the great multitude; and the remnant being small, not great
Also her hirelings in the midst of her as calves of the stall; for also they turned, they fled together: they stood not, for the day of their calamity came upon them, the time of their reviewing.
And I came near to you for judgment: and I was a swift witness against those practicing magic, and against those committing adultery, and against those swearing to falsehood, and against those oppressing the hire of the hireling, the widow and the orphan, and those turning aside the stranger, and they feared not me, said Jehovah of armies.
But the hired one, and not being the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, sees the wolf coming, and he leaves the sheep, and flees: and the wolf plunders them, and scatters the sheep.
But the hired one, and not being the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, sees the wolf coming, and he leaves the sheep, and flees: and the wolf plunders them, and scatters the sheep. The hired flees, because he is hired, and no care is to him for the sheep.