Thou shalt not oppress a hired servant [who is] poor and needy of thy brethren, or of thy sojourners who are in thy land within thy gates
Deuteronomy 24 is full of everyday rules for ordinary life. This one steps into the deal between an employer and a day labourer, protects the weaker man in it, and raises a question: why does God write wage policy into His law?
The "hired worker" here was not a household slave, and the difference matters:
These hired servants were different from the house servants, who were generally slaves. An employer took on a hired servant by the day and paid him at the close of the day. A servant hired by the priest did not count as one of the family and could not eat the holy things. The slaves, by contrast, did count as part of the family.
The rule guards the outsider as much as the Israelite, and the same standard reaches into the New Testament:
No one was to oppress a hired servant, whether an Israelite or a Gentile. If he was poor, he should get his wages every day (vv. 14-15). This is only right, for when the work is done, the pay is due. The New Testament tells masters to treat their servants "justly and fairly" (Colossians 4:1).
The same law appears again in Leviticus 19:13. One writer marvels that God notices a single night's delay:
"You shall not oppress your neighbour or rob him. The wages of a hired worker shall not remain with you all night until the morning." What tender care is here! The High and Mighty One who lives in eternity can notice the thoughts and feelings that rise in the heart of a poor labourer. He knows and takes into account what such a man expects from the fruit of his day's work. Of course he looks for his wages. The labourer's heart counts on them; the family meal depends on them. Oh, do not hold them back! Do not send the labourer home with a heavy heart, to make the heart of his wife and children heavy too.
One writer turns to rich employers who held back the pay of the men who reaped their fields. The unpaid debt itself becomes a voice:
They are charged with deliberate cruelty and fraud in their dealings with the labourers who reaped their fields. Their very wealth tempts the rich to hold back wages from the poor. Only their own affairs matter to them. They put off the claims of people who live from hand to mouth until it suits them. But the debt cries aloud to Him who always feels for the poor, as the One who alone made Him fully known has shown. Yes, the cries of the reapers may never have reached the rich. But they entered into the ears of the Lord of hosts, and His blow would fall when least expected.
One writer refuses to leave this in ancient Israel. He also blocks a common excuse: giving generously out of money squeezed from underpaid workers:
He denounces oppression of one's neighbour, even if it is only delaying for a single night to pay what was due to a poor labourer. Wealthy Jews were guilty in this way; is it confined to men of Israel? Employers often hire in a hard spirit that grinds down the poor. Some masters give generously to so-called Christian or charitable causes what they have wrung out of tears and curses. That makes no amends; in God's eyes it makes the wrong worse. And what has trade or commerce to answer for in the oppressive desire to grow rich?
The law gives Israel one reason to care for the poor: God had redeemed them out of Egypt. One writer says no smaller motive lasts:
Remembering the Lord's grace in redeeming them out of Egypt was to be the constant, all-powerful driving force behind how they treated the poor brother. This principle never fails, and nothing lower than this will ever hold up. We can only keep up a course of real, active kindness, whether towards our brothers or those outside, by keeping one thing before our hearts. That is the marvellous grace of God shown to us in the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Mere kindly feelings bubbling up in our own hearts, or drawn out by the sorrows and needs of others, will prove short-lived.
- The wage is bread. The hired man was taken on by the day and paid at day's end; delay was not an inconvenience but an empty table.
- The wage has no borders. Israelite or foreigner, the protection is the same. God looks at the man's need, not his nationality.
- The wage is watched. God takes account of what the labourer's heart is counting on, down to whether his family goes to bed hungry.
- The wage has a voice. Wages held back cry out to the Lord of hosts. The cry the employer never heard reaches Him.
- The wage is answered by grace. God redeemed Israel out of Egypt by grace. Remembering that, not a passing feeling, keeps a person fair to those below them.
on his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and his soul yearneth after it; lest he cry against thee to Jehovah, and it be a sin in thee.
God's law here reaches down into an ordinary transaction: a man works a day, and at sundown his employer owes him. It is more than a rule about timing. It shows how God views the worker, the delay, and the debt.
The verse protects a worker hired one day at a time. That is why the deadline is sunset, not the end of the month.
Hired men were different from the house servants, who were generally slaves. An employer took them on by the day and paid them at the end of the day. A priest's hired servant did not count as one of the family and could not eat the holy food. The slaves did count as part of the family.
So the hired man stood lower than a household slave. He had no claim on the family table. His wage was all he had, and the law guards it.
The deadline turns on what the worker expects, not on what suits the employer. One writer dwells on what God sees in the labourer's heart.
What tender care is here! The High and Mighty One who inhabits eternity can take notice of the thoughts and feelings that spring up in the heart of a poor labourer. He knows and takes into account what such a man expects from the fruit of his day's toil. Of course he will look for those wages. The labourer's heart counts on them; the family meal depends on them. Oh, do not hold them back. Do not send the labourer home with a heavy heart, to make the heart of his wife and family heavy too. By all means give him what he has worked for, what he has a right to, and what his heart is set on. He is a husband. He is a father. He has carried the burden and heat of the day so that his wife and children will not go hungry to bed.
The unpaid worker has one place left to take his case. One writer states plainly what happens then.
On the other hand, the labourer's hire must not be kept back, in case he cries to the Lord about it, and the Lord visits it as sin.
One writer turns to rich landowners who held back what they owed.
They are charged with wanton cruelty and fraud in their dealings with the labourers who reaped their fields. Their very wealth tempts the rich to withhold payment of wages from the poor. Only their own affairs matter in their eyes. They put off the claims of those who live from hand to mouth until a convenient time. But the debt cries aloud to Him who always feels for the poor... The cries of the reapers may never have reached the rich. But they entered the ears of the Lord of hosts, and His blow would fall when least expected.
God charges the sin to the employer, so giving elsewhere settles nothing. One writer applies this to the way business is often run.
The employment of labour is often carried on in a hard spirit, grinding the faces of the poor. Masters may give generously to so-called Christian or charitable causes out of money squeezed from tears and curses. In God's eyes that makes up for nothing; it only makes the wrong worse. And how much does trade or commerce have to answer for in the oppressive desire to grow rich?
The man who pays wages answers to a Master of his own.
For masters, the leading thought is not love but righteousness. Every Christian master should be continually asking himself about his servants, "What is just? What is fair?" And he is to remember that he too is a servant, with his own Master in the heavens. That Master has laid it down: "with the measure you use it will be measured to you."
- Owed — The hired man worked by the day, and his pay fell due at sunset. He had no place at the family table — only his wage.
- Urgent — God notices what the worker expects from his day's work. His heart counts on that money, and the family meal depends on it.
- Heard — Unpaid wages cry to the Lord. The reapers' cries may never have reached the rich, but they reached the Lord of hosts.
- Charged — The Lord counts the unpaid wage as sin. Giving to good causes out of money squeezed from others only makes it worse.
- Answerable — The employer is a servant too, with his own Master in heaven. The measure he uses will be measured back to him.