When Good Men Stay Silent

This week Cornell University did something it has never done. On October 13 it suspended every party and social event in its fraternity houses for the rest of the school year.

The reason is a lawsuit filed in September. A former student alleges that in 2024, at a fraternity house, she was pressured into taking drugs and then raped by several men. According to the BBC, the documents in the case include Snapchat messages in which men at the party allegedly advertised her to others. The local district attorney brought no charges, and New York’s attorney general has now been appointed to investigate. No one has been convicted, and the courts will decide what happened. I’m not going to try the case here.

But one thing is already clear. If the allegations are true, this wasn’t one man’s sin committed in secret. Other men knew. Some may have helped, and some may have laughed. Others may have heard about it the next morning and decided it wasn’t their business.

Scripture has a story about exactly that, and it doesn’t let anyone off the hook.

Read the Passage First

Second Samuel 13 is one of the darkest chapters in the Bible. It’s there because God doesn’t look away from what men do to women, and he doesn’t want us to look away either.

Lust that turns into hatred

Amnon, David’s firstborn son, wants his half-sister Tamar. The text calls it love, but it’s sick from the start. Amnon “was so tormented that he made himself ill” (v. 2). That isn’t love. It’s appetite. After he forces himself on her, the truth comes out: “Then Amnon hated her with very great hatred” (v. 15).

That’s what lust always does. It treats a person as a thing to consume, and when it’s done, it despises what it used. Men, take note: the desire the culture tells you to feed doesn’t end in love. It ends in contempt, for her and finally for yourself.

The very crafty friend

Amnon doesn’t act alone. “Jonadab was a very crafty man” (v. 3). He’s the friend who sees Amnon brooding and asks what’s wrong. He doesn’t warn him. He hands him a plan: pretend to be sick, ask for Tamar, get her alone (vv. 4–5).

Jonadab never touches Tamar, yet the text puts him right at the center of the crime. Later, when Absalom’s revenge comes, Jonadab is the one who calmly explains it to the king. He says it “has been determined from the day he violated his sister Tamar” (v. 32). He knew all along. He’s the man who makes the evil easier and then walks away clean.

Every party where something like this happens has a Jonadab. He’s the guy who supplies the drink, or sets up the room, or sends the message, or just says, “Go for it.”

Tamar’s protest

Tamar doesn’t go quietly. “No, my brother, do not violate me, for such a thing is not done in Israel; do not do this outrageous thing” (v. 12). Then she asks, “As for me, where could I carry my shame?” (v. 13).

Notice that her protest is moral and theological. She appeals to what God’s people simply don’t do. She also sees clearly what Amnon refuses to see: he would become “one of the outrageous fools in Israel” (v. 13). The victim is the one in this chapter who speaks with the clearest moral sense. “But he would not listen to her” (v. 14).

The angry father who did nothing

Here’s the verse every father and every leader needs to sit with: “When King David heard of all these things, he was very angry” (v. 21).

And that’s all he did. He didn’t go to his daughter, punish his son, or bring justice. The Greek Septuagint and a Dead Sea Scrolls manuscript of Samuel add a line that explains why: David would not punish Amnon “because he loved him, since he was his firstborn.”

David’s anger cost him nothing and helped no one. He went easy on the guilty because he loved him, and the innocent paid for it. Tamar “lived, a desolate woman” (v. 20).

What silence produces

When fathers won’t bring justice, someone else will bring revenge. Absalom waits two full years, saying nothing, and then has Amnon killed (vv. 22–29). That murder starts the chain that ends in Absalom’s rebellion and death. A father’s silence at verse 21 led to a civil war.

Genesis 34 has the same pattern. When Dinah is violated, Jacob “held his peace” (34:5). Her brothers called it “an outrageous thing in Israel” (34:7) and answered with a massacre. In both stories, the passive father leaves a void, and violence fills it.

So the passage condemns more than the man who did it. It condemns the friend who helped him and the father who wouldn’t act. God holds all three accountable.

Don’t Be Jonadab

Most men reading this would never do what Amnon did. But many of us have been Jonadab, or stood near him. We laughed at the story or let the joke go. Maybe we were in the group chat and said nothing.

Proverbs puts it bluntly: “My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent” (1:10). The men in Proverbs 1 say, “Come with us,” and the father answers, “My son, do not walk in the way with them” (1:15). Sin in a group feels lighter because the guilt seems shared. It isn’t shared. Each man carries all of his own.

Refusing the crowd is what courage looks like on a Friday night. It means walking her home, taking the phone, calling it what it is, and making the scene if you have to. It means being the man who gets called a buzzkill instead of the man who has to testify.

Don’t Be David at Verse 21

Fathers, coaches, pastors, older brothers, men with authority: your anger doesn’t count for much if you never act on it.

Paul tells Timothy to treat “younger women as sisters, in all purity” (1 Timothy 5:2). Think about what that means. A man doesn’t need a rulebook to know how to treat his own sister. He protects her. He’d stand between her and anyone who meant her harm. That’s the posture God calls us to toward every young woman around us.

For married men, the standard is higher still: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25). Christ’s love doesn’t take. It gives everything for her good. That’s the opposite of Amnon in every way.

And we owe our sons more than a rule. Have the uncomfortable conversation before he leaves for school. Tell him what lust does, and what Jonadab looks like. Tell him that if he’s ever in a room where it’s happening, you expect him to stop it, and you’ll back him up whatever it costs. Then live in a way that makes him believe you. Our sons learn manhood mostly from watching what we excuse.

Contending With Our Lives

Jude tells us to “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). We usually take that to mean defending doctrine, and it does. But read the rest of the letter. The false teachers Jude warns about are known by how they live: they “pervert the grace of our God into sensuality” (v. 4).

You can’t contend for the faith with your mouth while your life contradicts it. Men who believe in Christ should be the safest men in any room a woman walks into.

Grace and Justice

If you see yourself in Amnon or Jonadab, don’t hide. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins” (1 John 1:9). Christ died for real sinners, including men guilty of this. Repentance is real, and so is forgiveness. Repentance also tells the truth and makes things right where it can, including before the law.

If you’re the one who was wronged, hear this: God saw. Tamar’s story wasn’t hidden. God wrote it down. “But you do see,” the psalmist prays, “for you note mischief and vexation” (Psalm 10:14). Every injustice that human courts leave undone, God will set right.

If you or someone you love has been sexually assaulted, please reach out to RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-4673, or visit rainn.org. It’s free, confidential, and available 24/7.

Men, don’t be the friend who helps or the father who stays silent. Be the brother who steps in.