Matthew Henry on Deuteronomy 24:14–end
Here, I. Masters are commanded to be just to their poor servants, Deu 24:14, Deu 24:15. 1. They must not oppress them, by overloading them with work, by giving them undue and unreasonable rebukes, or by withholding from them proper maintenance. A servant, though a stranger to the commonwealth of Israel, must not be abused: "For thou wast a bondman in the land where thou wast a stranger (Deu 24:18), and thou knowest what a grievous thing it is to be oppressed by a task-master, and therefore, in tenderness to those that are servants and strangers, and in gratitude to that God who set thee at liberty and settled thee in a country of thy own, thou shalt not oppress a servant." Let not masters be…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Deuteronomy 24:14
Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy--Hired servants in the East are paid at the close of the day; and for a master to defraud the laborer 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 (Lev 19:13).
John Gill on Deuteronomy 24:14
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 ar…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Calvin on Deuteronomy 24:14-15
Deuteronomy 24:14, 15
14. 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:
14. Non opprimes mercenarium pauperem et egenum e fratribus tuis, et ex peregrinis tuis qui sunt in terra tua, intra portas tuas.
15. At his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it: lest he cry against thee unto the Lord, and it be sin unto thee.
15. Die suo reddes mercedem ejus, neque occumbet super eam sol: quia pauper est, et ea sustentat animam suam: ne clamet contra te ad Jehovam, et sit in te peccatum.
14. Thou shalt not oppr…
