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 you are my brother, should you then serve me for nothing? Tell me, what shall be your wages?
And Leah said, God has given me my hire, because I gave my slave to my husband. And she called his name Issachar.
I will pass through all the flocks today, taking out all the speckled and spotted sheep, and all of the black sheep among the lambs, and the spotted and the speckled among the goats. And these shall be my hire.
If he said this, The speckled shall be your wages, then all the flocks bore speckled. And if he said this, The striped shall be your hire, then all the flocks bore striped.
But now Jehovah has spoken, saying, Within three years, as the years of a hireling, and the glory of Moab shall be abased with all that great host and the remnant few; small, not mighty.
Also her hired ones are in her midst like calves of the stall; for they also have turned back, fleeing together. They did not stand, because the day of their calamity had come on them, the time of their visitation.
And I will come near you to judgment. And I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those who extort from the hired laborer's wages, and turning away the widow, and the orphan, the alien, and not fearing Me, says Jehovah of Hosts.
But he who is a hireling and not the shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away. And the wolf catches them and scatters the sheep.
But he who is a hireling and not the shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away. And the wolf catches them and scatters the sheep. The hireling flees, because he is a hireling and does not care for the sheep.