Leviticus 25:40

25:40 He must be with you as a hired worker, as a resident foreigner; ¹  he must serve with you until the year of jubilee,

Leviticus 25:53

25:53 He must be with the one who bought him ²  like a yearly hired worker. ³  The one who bought him ⁴  must not rule over him harshly in your sight.

Deuteronomy 15:18

15:18 You should not consider it difficult to let him go free, for he will have served you for six years, twice ⁵  the time of a hired worker; the Lord your God will bless you in everything you do.

Job 7:1-2

The Brevity of Life

7:1 “Does not humanity have hard service ⁶  on earth?

Are not their days also

like the days of a hired man? ⁷ 

7:2 Like a servant ⁸  longing for the evening shadow, ⁹ 

and like a hired man looking ¹⁰  for his wages, ¹¹ 

Job 14:6

14:6 Look away from him and let him desist, ¹² 

until he fulfills ¹³  his time like a hired man.

Isaiah 16:14

16:14 Now the Lord makes this announcement: “Within exactly three years ¹⁴  Moab’s splendor will disappear, along with all her many people; there will be just a few, insignificant survivors left.” ¹⁵ 

Isaiah 21:16

21:16 For this is what the sovereign master ¹⁶  has told me: “Within exactly one year ¹⁷  all the splendor of Kedar will come to an end.

[25:40]  ¹ tn See the note on Lev 25:6 above.

[25:53]  ² tn Heb “be with him”; the referent (the one who bought him) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[25:53]  ³ tn Heb “As a hired worker year in year.”

[25:53]  ⁴ tn Heb “He”; the referent (the one who bought him) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[15:18]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew term מִשְׁנֶה (mishneh, “twice”) could mean “equivalent to” (cf. NRSV) or, more likely, “double” (cf. NAB, NIV, NLT). The idea is that a hired worker would put in only so many hours per day whereas a bondslave was available around the clock.

[7:1]  ⁶ tn The word צָבָא (tsava’) is actually “army”; it can be used for the hard service of military service as well as other toil. As a military term it would include the fixed period of duty (the time) and the hard work (toil). Job here is considering the lot of all humans, not just himself.

[7:1]  ⁷ tn The שָׂכִיר (sakhir) is a hired man, either a man who works for wages, or a mercenary soldier (Jer 46:21). The latter sense may be what is intended here in view of the parallelism, although the next verse seems much broader.

[7:2]  ⁸ tn This term עֶבֶד (’eved) is the servant or the slave. He is compelled to work through the day, in the heat; but he longs for evening, when he can rest from the slavery.

[7:2]  ⁹ tn The expression יִשְׁאַף־צֵל (yish’af tsel, “longing for the evening shadow”) could also be taken as a relative clause (without the relative pronoun): “as a servant [who] longs for the evening shadow” (see GKC 487 §155.g). In either case, the expressions in v. 2 emphasize the point of the comparison, which will be summed up in v. 3.

[7:2]  ¹⁰ tn The two verbs in this verse stress the eager expectation and waiting. The first, שָׁאַף (sha’af), means “to long for; to desire”; and the second, קָוָה (qavah), has the idea of “to hope for; to look for; to wait.” The words would give the sense that the servant or hired man had the longing on his mind all day.

[7:2]  ¹¹ tn The word פֹּעַל (po’al) means “work.” But here the word should be taken as a metonymy, meaning the pay for the work that he has done (compare Jer 22:13).

[14:6]  ¹² tn The verb חָדַל (khadal) means “to desist; to cease.” The verb would mean here “and let him desist,” which some take to mean “and let him rest.” But since this is rather difficult in the line, commentators have suggested other meanings. Several emend the text slightly to make it an imperative rather than an imperfect; this is then translated “and desist.” The expression “from him” must be added. Another suggestion that is far-fetched is that of P. J. Calderone (“CHDL-II in poetic texts,” CBQ 23 [1961]: 451-60) and D. W. Thomas (VTSup 4 [1957]: 8-16), having a new meaning of “be fat.”

[14:6]  ¹³ tn There are two roots רָצַה (ratsah). The first is the common word, meaning “to delight in; to have pleasure in.” The second, most likely used here, means “to pay; to acquit a debt” (cf. Lev 26:34, 41, 43). Here with the mention of the simile with the hired man, the completing of the job is in view.

[16:14]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “in three years, like the years of a hired worker.” The three years must be reckoned exactly, just as a hired worker would carefully keep track of the time he had agreed to work for an employer in exchange for a predetermined wage.

[16:14]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and the splendor of Moab will be disgraced with all the great multitude, and a small little remnant will not be strong.”

[21:16]  ¹⁶ tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[21:16]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “in still a year, like the years of a hired worker.” See the note at 16:14.