Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are in thy land within thy gates:
Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy. Hirelings, who consisted for the most part, though not exclusively, of foreigners (Exodus 12:45), were entitled by express statute to kind and considerate treatment: and as they had it in their power to choose their services, they could doubtless be influenced in the kind and degree of employment they deemed the best and easiest.
Hired servants, with the exception of a particular class resident in the family of their master, and whose term of employment lasted for a year (Gen. 25:53), were among the Israelites (cf. Matthew 20:1), as in the East generally, day labourers, and paid every day. No one works after the sun goes down (cf. Leviticus 19:13) even in winter. The wages are given at the close of the day; and for a master to defraud the labourer of his hire, or to withhold it wrongfully for a night, might have subjected a poor man with his family to suffering, and was therefore an injustice to be avoided (Leviticus 19:13: see Saalschutz, 'On Hebrew Servitude,' Barrow's translation). The hired were paid in money; the bought received their gratuity at least in grain, cattle, and the produce of the vintage. The hired lived in their own families; the bought formed part of their masters' families.