(14, 15) Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant.--So Leviticus 19:13. "The wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning." (Comp. also Jeremiah 22:13; Malachi 3:5; James 5:4.)

Verses 14, 15. - The wage of the laborer was to be punctually paid, whether he were an Israelite or a foreigner (cf. Leviticus 19:13; the law there is repeated here, with a special reference to the distress which the withholding of the hire from a poor man even for a day might occasion).

24:14-22 It is not hard to prove that purity, piety, justice, mercy, fair conduct, kindness to the poor and destitute, consideration for them, and generosity of spirit, are pleasing to God, and becoming in his redeemed people. The difficulty is to attend to them in our daily walk and conversation.Thou shall not oppress an hired servant,.... That is hired by the day, as appears by Deuteronomy 24:15; though the law may include such as are hired by the week, or month, or year; neither of whom are to be oppressed by any means, and chiefly by detaining their wages; so the Jerusalem Targum explains the phrase,"ye shall not detain by force the hire of the hired servant;''nor by fraud, as in James 5:4,

that is poor and needy; and so cannot bear the lest oppression of this kind, nor to have his wages detained from him any time, and much less wholly to be defrauded of them:

whether he be of thy brethren; an Israelite, and so a brother both by nation and religion:

or of thy strangers that are in thy land, within thy gates; Jarchi interprets this, both of proselytes of righteousness, and of proselytes of the gate; which latter are plainly described by this clause, and the former must be included; for, if proselytes of the gate are not to be oppressed, much less proselytes of righteousness, who were in all respects as Israelites, the same law was to them both. Jarchi says, the phrase "in thy land" is intended to comprehend the hire of beasts, and of vessels; and these in the Misnah (o) are said to be comprehended in this precept, as well as the hire of man.

(o) Bava Metzia, c. 9. sect. 12.