Indispensable servants are always at risk of becoming oppressive masters. Humanity has always known this; it is only recently that our technologies have become so useful as to replace human servants and occupy this ambivalent position, leaving their owners and users reduced to the spectacle of pathetic Ish-bosheths—unable to live with them or without them. There is no simple answer to this dilemma, though it may perhaps at least be some comfort to us in our predicament to realize that we are hardly alone, but are simply facing an age-old paradox that bedeviled Agamemnon before it bedeviled us.

In much writing about technology (including my own) you will often encounter the metaphor of technology as a treacherous servant. For instance, I wrote in a column for WORLD earlier this year about smartphones, “Technology is a great servant but a bad master; although these devices may be here to stay, we have a responsibility to ourselves and our children to ensure we are using them, rather than them using us.” The metaphor is common enough to be at risk of becoming a cliché, but I don’t know that we give it the thought it deserves.

After all, I think we are often tempted, when reaching for such language, to think that this paradox of “servant as master” is one of the novel features of our current technological experience, that it is precisely because our technologies have become so advanced that they are in danger of using us, rather than we them. After all, who was ever at risk of being tyrannized over by their hammer or hatchet? And yet, the problem of treacherous servants turning on or exploiting their masters is a theme as old as literature itself—or probably older.

I had occasion to reflect on this while preparing for my “Faithfulness as Christian Citizens” mini-course for churches, where I draw extensively on Old Testament narratives to draw out illuminating insights for political life. One of my favorite such passages is 2 Samuel 3. For those a little rusty on their Samuels, the narrative goes like this:

Saul has died, and David, as the Lord’s anointed, is seeking to consolidate his rule over Israel. However, initially he enjoys only the support of his own tribe, Judah; the rest of Israel, understandably, rallies around Saul’s sole surviving son, Ish-bosheth. A civil war commences, and the balance of power slowly shifts: “And David grew stronger and stronger, while the house of Saul became weaker and weaker” (2 Sam. 3:2). A fascinating narrative then ensues. Abner, the commander of Ish-bosheth’s army, is described as “making himself strong in the house of Saul” (3:6); Ish-bosheth then accuses Abner (falsely or truly, the narrative never tells us) of sleeping with one of Saul’s concubines (thus symbolically appropriating kingly authority to himself). Abner responds indignantly and decides to defect and “transfer the kingdom from the house of Saul and set up the throne of David over Israel” (3:10). Abner then summons a council of the elders and goes to David on their behalf to pledge fealty.

David accepts Abner’s peace overture, but when David’s own general, Joab, learns of it, he denies that the overture is genuine, denouncing Abner as a spy and treacherously murdering him. David then goes to great lengths to publicly distance himself from this action, proclaiming his grief at Abner’s death and cursing Joab.

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