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HUSBANDMAN, HUSBANDRY.—In EV [Note: English Version.] the former is, in most cases, synonymous with ‘a tiller of the ground,’ which RV [Note: Revised Version.] has substituted for it in Zec_13:5–—in modern English, a farmer. The first farmer mentioned in OT, therefore, is not Noah the ‘husbandman’ (Gen_9:20), but Cain the ‘tiller of the ground’ (Gen_4:2). In Joh_15:1, however, the former has the more limited sense of vinedresser: ‘I am the true vine and my Father is the vinedresser’ (AV [Note: Authorized Version.] and RV [Note: Revised Version.] ‘husbandman’). So, too, in the parable of the Vineyard (Mat_21:33 ff.).
‘Husbandry,’ in the same way, is tillage, farming. Thus of king Uzziah it is said that ‘he loved husbandry’ (lit. ‘the land’ in the modern sense, 2Ch_26:10), that is, as the context shows, he loved and fostered agriculture, including viticulture. In 1Co_3:9 ‘husbandry’ is used by metonymy of the land tilled (cf. RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] ): ‘ye are God’s field’ (Weymouth, The NT in Modern Speech).
A. R. S. Kennedy.