HUSBANDMAN. This word was used by the KJV to tr. four different Heb. terms: (1) אִכָּר, H438, “farmer” now tr. “ploughman (plowman),” “tiller of the soil” or “farmer” (2 Chron 26:10; Isa 61:5; Jer 14:4; 31:24; 51:23; Joel 1:11; Amos 5:16) by the modern VSS; (2) אִ֣ישׁ הָֽאֲדָמָ֑ה, lit. “man of the soil” (Gen 9:20) of Noah, and (3) אִישׁ־עֹבֵ֤ד אֲדָמָה׃֙, lit. “man who tills the soil” (Zech 13:5) now tr. either literally or else as “tiller of the soil”; and (4) יֹגֵב (2 Kings 25:12 and Jer 52:16) now tr. “ploughman” or “laborers” by the modern VSS. KB now gives “unpaid labourers” as the meaning of this term, based upon an Arab. cognate. The KJV used “husbandry” to tr. the Heb. word אֲדָמָה֒, H141, “soil” (2 Chron 26:10). Most modern VSS now tr. this literally.

In the NT the Gr. term γεωργός, G1177, rendered “husbandman” by KJV, is tr. “farmer” in 2 Timothy 2:6 and James 5:7, and “tenant” in the parable in Matthew 21:33-43; Mark 12:1-12 and Luke 20:9-19. In the latter passage it is used to mean a “tenant-farmer” or “vinedresser,” one who rented a vineyard and paid his rent from the crops he harvested. The word γεώργιον, G1176, (1 Cor 3:9), rendered “husbandry” in KJV, is now tr. “field, cultivated land.”