Wages (Hastings' Dictionary)

The usual OT term for ‘wages’ is py sakhar ; less frequently the cognate ntbyn maskoreth, and m>ya pé'ullah. jinx ethnan is the reward paid to a prostitute. As wages are the price paid or the reward given for labour, 179 méir, ‘ price,’ may sometimes* be translated ‘wages’ or ‘hire’; and conversely the terms for ‘wages’ are sometimes translated ‘reward.’+ The usual NT term is puc Ads, misthos.

The term dfénor, opsénion, is translated ‘wages’ in Lk 3" (of soldiers), Ro 6% (‘the wages of sin is death’), and 2 Co 118 According to Sanday-Headlam on Ro 6%, éydviov ‘ =(1) ‘* provi- sion-money, ration-money, or the rations in kind given to troops”; (2) in a more general sense, ““wages.”’ It is used in the Apocrypha of wages paid to soldiers. (A) OLD TESTAMENT.

—There are only a few re- ferences to wages in the Old Testament, because in Israel, as in the ancient world generally, most work was done either by members of the family or by slaves. We may, howeyer, take ‘ wages’ in a broad sense as the price of labour without regard to the status of the labourer. From this point of view we may consider wages as paid to five classes: (i.) the farmer and his family living chiefly on the actual produce of their work ; (ii.)

relations outside the family in its narrow modern sense; (iii.) slaves ; (iv.) priests, soldiers, hired labourers, etc., giving all their time to a master; (v.) craftsmen, smiths, carpenters, etc., working for different customers. It may be as well to say at once that the available data are extremely meagre, so that only general statements are possible. i.

A farming family living chiefly by its own labour on its own land depended for the return for its labour on its industry, the fertility of the land, and the stage of development of agriculture. These, of course, varied: for the general condition of things, see AGRICULTURE (in vol. i.), PALESTINE (in vol. iii.), ete.

But the accounts which we have of the families of Saul and of Jesse of Bethlehem suggest that in earlier times the yeomen-farmers, as we should call them, obtained a good return for their labour. The prophets of the 8th cent. (Is 34 58 10%, Am 28-8 39% 10 511-12) and the Book of Nehe- miah (ch. 5) show that towards the close of the monarchy, and after the Return, the small farmers were burdened with various charges,§ taxes, usury, etc., and hardly made a livelihood. li.

Remuneration of dependents. —'There were often associated with the actual family, more distant relations and other dependents. These shared the work and the life of the family, prob- ably, as a rule, on no fixed terms, but receiving, as we should say, board and lodging; living ‘as * e.g, Mic 311, teg. Ru 212 ¢ 1 Mac 328 1482, and (apparently) 1 Es 456, § This is rather an inference for the period of the close of the monarchy.

358 WAGES one of the family,’ but often with inferior comfort and less consideration. Thus the ‘ poor relation’ would be provided for; and ‘the poor within thy gates and the Levite,’ who are so often commended to the charity of the pious Israelite (Ex 234, Dt 1238: 19 1426-29 157-8), would no doubt be expected to render some service to their benefactors. Thus Moses kept the flocks of his father-in-law Jethro (Ex 3!)

; and Jacob, at the beginning of his sojourn with Laban, rendered similar service for board and lodging (Gn 29"), The sequel (cf. § iv.) shows that dependents might also become hired servants at fixed wages. lil. Remwneration of slaves.—Their remuneration, like that of the previous class, consisted of ‘all found,’ and varied according to the circumstances, character, and goodwill of the master. We should gather that the slaves were well treated, as is commonly the case in the East.

See also art. SERVANT in vol. iv. iv. Wages of hirelings in continual employment. —The class of whom we read most are the priests ; their wages in earlier times consisted of a share of the sacrifices, and of freewill offerings. Probably, as a rule, either a priest had land as a family in- heritance, or the sanctuary held land. Some priests received a stipend from the owners of a private or tribal sanctuary.

Moses’ grandson was hired by Micah of Ephraim to be priest of his sanctuary for a yearly salary of 10 pieces of silver (shekels), a suit of clothes, and his board and lodging (Jg 17°: 2), No doubt this was fairly liberal; yet when the Danites invited him to go with them ‘he was poet (Polychrome Bible), probably expecting a arger income. Thus he became priest of the sanctuary of the northern Danites at Dan.

The Priestly Code has very large ideas as to the proper revenues of priests and Levites, but these were never fully realized ; see art. PRIESTS AND LEVITES (in vol. iv.), §8f, §10b. In early times there were no professional soldiers ; probably the leader or the king may have made some contribution of provisions or arms to the levy engaged in actual warfare. The chief wage of the soldier was plunder.

The bodyguard, the foreign mercenaries, and the forces of horsemen and chariots must have received some regular pay and have been provided with fodder and stabling, board and lodging (1 K 476-88), In 2 Ch 258 Amaziah hires 100,000 mercenaries for 100 talents of silver; the hiring would be for a single campaign, which might perhaps last a month. The wages of a successful soldier would be augmented by royal gifts, as in the case of David (18 17%), and grants of land. Thus we read in 15 8.

‘ The king will take your fields, and vineyards, and oliveyards, even the best of them, and will give them to his servants. And he will take the tenth of your grain, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants.’ Little is said about the pay of other classes of hirelings. Jacob purchased a wife by seven years’ service (Gn 29'8), and of course had ‘all found’ during the period; afterwards he was paid by a portion of the increase of the flock (30!)

; tee we do not know the normal price of wives; it eileen depended on the eagerness of the would- e son-in-law. d The hireling is not referred to in the JE legisla- tion (Ten Commandments, Book of the Covenant, etc.), so that, apparently, work for wages was rare in early times. It increased with the growth of civilization. The hirelings were sufficiently numer- ous to be the subject of ordinances in the later codes, Dt 2414, Lv 22 (H), Ex 12(P).

The pay- ment of wages would be increased by the attempt of the Priestly Code (Lv 25%) to minimize slavery amongst the Jews. The hireling seems to have WAGES been at the mercy of his employers as to the amount of his wages, and even as to getting them paid at all. Laban changed Jacob’s wages ten times (Gn 31’).

Both the Prophets and the Law intervene on behalf of the wage-earner (Dt 2414, Jer 22, Mal 3°); he was to be paid promptly, usually, as it seems, at the end of each day (Dt 24), Lv 1918, Job 72), but Ly 25” refers to a ‘servant hired year by year.’ The hireling was considered inferior in industry to a slave, of whom it is said in Dt 15! ‘to the double of the hire of a hirelin, hath he served thee.

’ In the earlier periods o Israelite history, when almost every family had its own land, it would be the exceptionally oor ‘ne’er-do-well’ who was on bad terms with his kin, or the foreigner, that hired himself into service. Dt 244 speaks of the hireling as ‘poor and needy . of thy brethren or of thy strangers.

’ Natur- ally the connexion of the hireling with the family was less close than that of the slave; he has no share in the family sacra; he may not eat the passover (Ex 12*[P]); nor may the hired servant of a priest eat the holy food (Lv 22). When we consider these facts, together with the control of the labour market by the employer, and the full advantage which the latter took of the situation, we may be sure that the usual rate of wages afforded only a bare subsistence to the free labourer.

The description of the miserable condition of the working classes in Job 241" will refer to hired servants. In the case of the corvée, or compulsory service for public works, no wages were paid yond food and lodging. The corvée was used b Solomon to build the temple (1 K 5% 124), an doubtless by other kings and nobles (Jer 22"). v. Wages for occasional pieces of work, — phets, priests, judges, etc.

, received payment under different names for the occasional services rendered by them to their clients (Mic 34). These payments or fees were variously known as gifts, shares of victims (cf. above), or even bribes. The gifts or bribes varied with the importance of the occasion, the wealth of the giver, and the standing of the recipient. Saul considered that Samuel would accept a quarter of a shekel as a suflicient fee for information about his lost asses (15 98).

Jeroboam’s wife going to Ahijah, disguised as an ordinary woman, took him ‘ten loaves, and cracknels, and a cruse of honey’ (1 K 14%), But the princes who consulted Joseph (Gn 41“), Balaam (Nu 22!7), and Daniel (Dn 2° 51°), made them munificent offers of wealth, power, and honour, There are references to various kinds of crafts- men who must have worked ‘ by the job’ so to speak, especially to smiths and carpenters, but we are not told how they were paid.

Judah’s payment of a kid to Tamar (Gn 38'7) may be mentioned here. Code of Hammurabi.—This code, which is dated about B.a. 2285-2242 (Johns), includes provisions as to the fees to be paid to doctors and builders; and as to the wages of boatmen, reapers, threshers, shepherds, labourers, brickmakers, tailors, stonecutters, and carpenters ; and as to the hire of oxen, cows, wagyons, and boats.

If a doctor performs for a noble a suc- cessful operation for a wound or an abscess in the eye, he receives ten shekels of silver; if for a poor man, five; if for a slave, two. But if the noble dies or loses his eye, the doctor’s hands are cut off; in the case of a slave, the doctor replaces him if he dies; pays half his price if he loses his eye, For minor operations, the doctor receives five, three, or two shekels, according to the rank of his patient.

A cow- or sheep-doctor receives one-sixth of a shekel of silver for a cure, and pays the owner a quarter of the animal’s value if it dies. A builder is to be paid in proportion to the size of the house ; and if it collapses through faulty construction and the owner is killed, the builder is to be put to death; if other damage is caused, suitable com- pensation is to be paid.

Oxen, boatmen, reapers, threshers, and shepherds were hired for the year; the hire for the ox being 4 gur of corn, of @ boatman or thresher 6, of a reaper or shepherd 8, There were also hirings by the day, as follows: (a) reckoned Worth, according to Johns, a shekel of silver per gur.

WAGES In ka* of corn; for threshing, ox 20, ass 10, calf 1; oxen, waggon, and driver, 180; or waggon, 40; (6) reckoned in Se ¢ of silver ; boat,3; carpenter, 4; tailor, brickmaker, or stonecutter, 6; labourer, for first five months of the year, 6; for the last seven months, 6. A freight boat to carry 60 gur of corn could be hired for one-sixth of a shekel a day.

In this code many regulations are laid down as to slaves; little is said as to their treatment or the provision made for their maintenance, but we may conclude that they were treated with the comparative humanity and consideration usually ac- corded to them in the ancient East.

For instance, the code implies that a master would be willing to pay two shekels, or the equivalent of three months’ wages to a shepherd, for the cure of a slave, Moreover, if a slave married a free woman, the children were free. It will be noticed that wages, as in mediwval codes, are fixed by law.

We may surmise, from the analogy of the Middle Ages, that these regulations were made in the interests of the em- ployers ; and that, practically, the rates fixed were a minimum, and that higher wages were often paid. (B) THE APOCRYPHA AND THE NEW TESTA-