Reference: Wages
American
The law and the gospel both require the full and prompt payment of a just equivalent for all services rendered according to agreement, Le 19:13; Jer 22:13; Jas 5:4. Eternal death is the wages or just recompense of sin; while eternal life is not a recompense earned by obedience, but a sovereign gift of God, Ro 6:22-23.
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Easton
Rate of (mention only in Mt 20:2); to be punctually paid (Le 19:13; De 24:14-15); judgements threatened against the withholding of (Jer 22:13; Mal 3:5; comp. Jas 5:4); paid in money (Mt 20:1-14); to Jacob in kind (Ge 29:15,20; 30:28; 31:7-8,41).
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Fausets
Paid by Laban to Jacob in kind (Ge 29:15,20; 30:28; 31:7-8,41; "I served 14 years for thy two daughters, and six years for thy cattle".) The labourer's daily wages (misthos) in Matthew 20 are set at one denarius ("penny") a day, 7 3/4 d. of our money; compare Tob 5:14, "a drachm." The term opsoonia for "wages" (Lu 3:14) and Paul's words, 2Co 11:8 (opsoonion), "charges," 1Co 9:7, imply that provisions were part of a soldier's wages. They should be paid every night (Le 19:13; De 24:14-15; compare Job 24:11; Jas 5:4; Jer 22:13; Mal 3:5); spiritually, Joh 4:36; Ro 6:23.
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Hastings
Under the conditions of life in Palestine in OT times, work on the land, at all times the chief occupation, was done for the most part by the peasant and his family, assisted, in the case of the well-to-do, by a few slaves. The 'hired servants' were never numerous, and mainly aliens. We have no information as to the wages of such field-labourers. De 15:18 seems to say that a hireling cost the farmer twice as much as a slave, and since the latter received only his keep and his few clothes, it follows that the former will have earned the equivalent thereof, over and above, in wages. The first definite engagement
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Smith
Wages.
The earliest mention of wages is of a recompense, not in money, but in kind, to Jacob from Laban.
In Egypt money payments by way of wages were in use, but the terms cannot now be ascertained.
The only mention of the rate of wages in Scripture is found in the parable of the householder and the vineyard,
where the laborer's wages was set at one denarius per day, probably 15 to 17 cents, a sum which may be fairly taken as equivalent to the denarius, and to the usual pay of a soldier (ten asses per diem) in the later days of the Roman republic. Tac. Ann. i. 17; Polyb. vi. 39. In earlier times it is probable that the rate was lower; but it is likely that laborers, and also soldiers, were supplied with provisions. The law was very strict in requiring daily payment of wages.
Le 19:13; De 24:14-15
The employer who refused to give his-laborers sufficient victuals is censured
and the iniquity of withholding wages is denounced.