A wage-worker (good or bad)
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μισθωτός names a hired hand, a wage-worker paid for a task rather than bound to it by ownership or covenant. John 10:12-13 sets this figure directly against the good shepherd: "The hired hand is not the shepherd, and the sheep are not his own.
Reader summary
Full entry for μισθωτός (G3411) · Open the biblical lexicon
μισθωτός names a hired hand, a wage-worker paid for a task rather than bound to it by ownership or covenant. John 10:12-13 sets this figure directly against the good shepherd: "The hired hand is not the shepherd, and the sheep are not his own.
The BSB source-word alignment has 3 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include a hired servant (1), hired hand (1), hired men (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Mark 1:20. Its strongest book concentrations include John (2), Mark (1).
μισθωτός names a hired hand, a wage-worker paid for a task rather than bound to it by ownership or covenant. John 10:12-13 sets this figure directly against the good shepherd: "The hired hand is not the shepherd, and the sheep are not his own. When he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away... because he is a hired servant and is unconcerned for the sheep."
The contrast is not about competence; nothing in the text suggests the hired hand fails at ordinary shepherding tasks. The contrast is about ownership and cost. The sheep are not his, so their danger is not, finally, his loss, and when real cost arrives in the form of a wolf, he calculates his own safety and leaves. Jesus, by contrast, identifies himself moments later as the shepherd who 'lays down his life for the sheep' (John 10:11).
Teachers should use this word to press the difference between paid service and owned responsibility, not to condemn every wage-earner as inherently unfaithful.
The hired hand in John 10:12-13 is not evil in an obvious way; he simply has no ownership stake in the sheep's survival. That is precisely the point. Ezekiel's indictment of Israel's self-serving shepherds and promise that God himself will shepherd his flock (Ezek 34) finds its fulfillment claim in John 10, where Jesus contrasts himself, the shepherd who lays down his life, with the hired hand who flees.
The hired hand is not the shepherd, and the sheep are not his own. When he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf pounces on them and scatters the flock.
John 10:12-13 describes the hired hand who 'abandons the sheep and runs away' when he sees the wolf coming, 'because he is a hired servant and is unconcerned for the sheep.'
I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.
The contrast follows immediately after Jesus' claim in John 10:11 to be 'the good shepherd' who 'lays down his life for the sheep,' making the hired hand a direct foil for Jesus' own self-giving.
“Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and tell them that this is what the Lord God says: ‘Woe to the shepherds of Israel, who only feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed their flock?
Ezekiel 34:2-6 condemns Israel's shepherds who 'feed themselves' rather than the flock, giving Old Testament background for the failed-shepherd figure John 10 contrasts with Jesus.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. A temporary servant hired for wages, lacking personal investment or loyalty to the master.
A temporary servant hired for wages, lacking personal investment or loyalty to the master.
(μισθόω), [in LXX for שָׂכִיר, Exo.12:45, al. ;] hired; as subst., ὁ μ., a hired servant, hireling: Mrk.1:20, Jhn.10:12-13.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
4 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
a hired servant
Read versea hired servant
Read versea hired servant
Read versea hired servant
Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 2 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
μισθωτός is built from this root:
The hired hand in John 10:12-13 is not evil in an obvious way; he simply has no ownership stake in the sheep's survival. That is precisely the point. Jesus does not need to describe active cruelty to make his contrast land: mere absence of costly commitment is enough to explain the hired hand's flight when the wolf appears. The verse forces a question onto every reader who exercises spiritual care over others, whether as pastor, teacher, parent, or leader: is my care for these people owned, at real cost to myself, or hired, withdrawn when the cost rises?
Preachers can use this figure honestly, naming the temptation to withdraw from costly care, without turning every paid ministry role into an accusation. This word opens a teaching doorway on the difference between costly, owned care and paid, withdrawable service: the hired hand in John 10:12-13 flees not from incompetence but from a lack of ownership stake, the very thing Jesus supplies by laying down his life.
It gives leaders a text for examining their own willingness to stay present when real cost arrives. It corrects readings that treat the hired hand as simply incompetent or cowardly by temperament, missing that the text names his lack of ownership, not a character flaw alone, as the reason he flees. Frame μισθωτός as a figure defined by lack of ownership stake in the sheep, contrasted with Jesus' self-giving ownership as shepherd, rather than as a blanket condemnation of paid ministry roles.
John.10.12
Frame μισθωτός as a figure defined by lack of ownership stake in the sheep, contrasted with Jesus' self-giving ownership as shepherd, rather than as a blanket condemnation of paid ministry roles. Linguistically, μισθωτός should be allowed to name hired hand, wage-worker without carrying claims the cited passages do not make.
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Open Scriptures Hebrew Lexicon — CC BY 4.0
Berean Standard Bible (BSB) source-word alignment - CC0 Public Domain