Hire

Hire - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

HIRE, v.t.

1. To procure from another person and for temporary use, at a certain price, or for a stipulated or reasonable equivalent; as, to hire a farm for a year; to hire a horse for a day; to hire money at legal interest.

2. To engage in service for a stipulated reward; to contract with for a compensation; as, to hire a servant for a year; to hire laborers by the day or month.

3. To bribe; to engage in immoral or illegal service for a reward.

To hire out one's self, to let; to engage one's service to another for a reward.

They have hired out themselves for bread. 1 Sam 2.

To hire, or to hire out, to let; to lease; to grant the temporary use of a thing for a compensation. He has hired out his house or his farm.

HIRE, n.

1. The price, reward or compensation paid or contracted to be given for the temporary use of any thing.

2. Wages; the reward or recompense paid for personal service.

The laborer is worthy of his hire. Luke 10.

hir: Two entirely different words are translated "hire" in the Old Testament:

(1) The most frequent one is sakhar, verb sakhar, and verbal adjective sakhir.

(a) As a verb it means "to hire" for a wage, either money or something else; in this sense it is used with regard to ordinary laborers (1Sa 2:5; 2Ch 24:12), or mercenary soldiers (2Sa 10:6; 2Ki 7:6; 1Ch 19:6; 2Ch 25:6), or a goldsmith (Isa 46:6), or a band of loose followers (Jud 9:4), or a false priest (Jud 18:4), or Balaam (De 23:4; Ne 13:2), or hostile counselors (Ezr 4:5), or false prophets (Ne 6:12 f). As a verbal adjective it refers to things (Ex 22:15; Isa 7:20)or men (Le 19:13; Jer 46:21).

(b) As a noun it denotes the wage in money, or something else, paid to workmen for their services (Ge 30:32 f; 31:8; De 24:15; 1Ki 5:6; Zec 8:10), or the rent or hire paid for a thing (Ex 22:15), or a work-beast (Zec 8:10). In Ge 30:16 Leah hires from Rachel the privilege of having Jacob with her again, and her conception and the subsequent birth of a son, she calls her hire or wage from the Lord for the gift of her slave girl to Jacob as a concubine (Ge 30:18).

(2) The other word translated hire is 'ethnan, once 'ethnan. It is rather a gift (from root nathan, "to give") than a wage earned by labor, and is used uniformly in a bad sense. It is the gift made to a harlot (De 23:18), or, reversing the usual custom, made by the harlot nation (Eze 16:31,41). It was also used metaphorically of the gifts made by Israelites to idols, since this was regarded as spiritual harlotry (Isa 23:17 f; Mic 1:7; compare also Ho 8:9 f).

In the English New Testament the word occurs once as a verb and 3 times as a noun as the translation of misthos, and its verbal form. In Mt 20:1,8 and Jas 5:4 it refers to the hiring of ordinary field laborers for a daily wage. In Lu 10:7 it signifies the stipend which is due the laborer in the spiritual work of the kingdom of God. It is a wage, earned by toil, as that of other laborers. The word is very significant here and absolutely negatives the idea, all too prevalent, that money received by the spiritual toiler is a gift. It is rather a wage, the reward of real toil.

William Joseph McGlothlin