Radically Happy

Hat tip to Josiah Queen

V2 2025-11-02 revised final chorus

Everyone wants to be the Prodigal Son
Nobody wants to be Jepthah’s Daughter

Whom he sacrificed to the LORD to fulfill a vow

[Verse 1]
I’ve been bound inside \ to die an unwed bride
Searching far and wide \ for how to save my life
I cannot save my life

[Pre-Chorus]
So I will dare to lose my soul
If that is the only hope to
Lead them straight to You, and

[Chorus]
I’m lost in a feeling
That I ain’t long for this world
Going to Golgotha
Ain’t gonna be easy
But it leads them straight to You
So I’m heading home
Like a Jephthah’s girl

[Verse 2]
I don’t fight the altar
I don’t fear the flame
I just want a life that rises up from the grave

[Pre-Chorus 2]
Yeah, I’ll dare to lose my soul
If that is the only way to
Lead them straight to you, and

[Chorus 2]
I’m lost in a feeling
That I ain’t long for this world
Going to Golgotha
Ain’t gonna be easy
But it leads them straight to You
So I’m heading home
Like a Jephthah’s girl

[Bridge]

I will dare to lose my soul
If that is the only way to
Lead them straight to you, and

You’ve prepared for me a place
When I see You face to face
“Well done, faithful child“
Now I’m lifted home
Like a Jephthah’s girl

[Chorus 3]

I’m lost in a feeling
That I ain’t long for this world
Going to Golgotha
Ain’t gonna be easy
But it leads them straight to You
So I’m heading home
Like a Jephthah’s girl

I’m lost in the bleeding
As I depart from this world
Dying on a cross here
Ain’t gonna be easy
But it makes me more like You
Now I’m offered up
Like a Jephthah’s girl

---

Appendix: Jephthah’s Daughter as a Type of Christ

Write an Appendix to this song about Jepthah’s daughter as a type of Christ.

ChatGPT Prompt

The Story

In Judges 11:29-40, Jephthah makes a rash vow to the Lord: if God grants him victory over the Ammonites, he will sacrifice as a burnt offering “whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me” upon his return. Tragically, his only child—his daughter—comes dancing out to greet him with tambourines and celebration.

When Jephthah tears his clothes in anguish and tells her of his vow, her response is extraordinary: “My father, if you have given your word to the LORD, do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth“ (Judges 11:36). She asks only for two months to go into the mountains with her friends and “weep because I will never marry” (Judges 11:37).

After this time, “she returned to her father, and he did to her according to his vow” (Judges 11:39). The text establishes an annual custom in Israel: “the daughters of Israel went year by year to lament the daughter of Jephthah” for four days (Judges 11:40).

Typological Resonances with Christ

1. The Only Child Given for Victory

• Jephthah’s daughter was his only child (Judges 11:34: “she was his only child; besides her he had neither son nor daughter“)
• Jesus is God’s “only begotten Son“ (John 3:16), given for our victory over sin and death
• Both sacrifices secured deliverance for God’s people

2. Voluntary Submission to the Father’s Vow

• She willingly submitted: “Do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth“
• Christ prayed: “Not my will, but yours, be done“ (Luke 22:42)
• Both could have protested but chose obedience to the father’s word

3. Knowledge and Acceptance of Coming Death

• She understood her fate and prepared for it during her two months in the mountains
• Jesus repeatedly predicted His death and “set his face to go to Jerusalem“ (Luke 9:51)
• Both walked knowingly toward the altar

4. Mourning with Friends Before Death

• She spent her final days with her companions mourning what would never be
• Jesus spent His final night with disciples in Gethsemane, where He was “deeply grieved, even to death“ (Matthew 26:38)
• Both prepared for sacrifice in community

5. The Paradox of Losing Life to Find It

• She lost her life and all hope of descendants or legacy
• Yet she gained eternal remembrance—an annual memorial lasting generations
• Jesus taught: “Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it“ (Matthew 16:25)
• Both demonstrated that true life comes through sacrificial death

6. Vicarious Suffering for Another’s Vow

• She bore the consequence of her father’s rash promise
• Christ bore the consequence of the Father’s covenant promise and our sin
• “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree“ (1 Peter 2:24)

7. Leading Others to God Through Death

• Her sacrifice fulfilled her father’s vow to the LORD and secured Israel’s victory
• Christ’s sacrifice fulfills God’s redemptive plan: “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself“ (John 12:32)
• Both deaths created a path for others to draw near to God

8. Annual Remembrance

• Israel established a yearly tradition to “lament the daughter of Jephthah“ four days each year
• Christians observe the Lord’s Supper: “Do this in remembrance of me“ (Luke 22:19)
• Both are memorialized through sacred remembrance

9. Coming Out to Meet with Joy

• She came out “with tambourines and dancing“ to celebrate victory
• Christ came to His passion “for the joy that was set before him“ (Hebrews 12:2)
• Both approached their sacrifice with an element of joy in what it would accomplish

10. The Greater Reality

• She mourned that she would “never marry“—never become a bride
• Christ died to prepare His bride, the Church, for the wedding feast of the Lamb (Revelation 19:7-9)
• Her sacrifice pointed forward to the One who would die to gain His bride

The Theological Pattern

Jephthah’s daughter embodies what theologians call a “type”—an Old Testament person, event, or institution that foreshadows a greater New Testament reality. Her story asks the question that Christ answers:

What if someone willingly embraced death, trusting that loss of life would lead others to God?

She modeled the principle Jesus would later articulate: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit“ (John 12:24).

Her story is tragic precisely because it is incomplete. She had to die. Christ’s death, however, opens the way to resurrection life—the same path of self-giving love, but with the promise that “whoever loses his life for my sake will find it“ fulfilled in resurrection power.

This is why her story haunts us: she shows us the pattern of Christ before Christ came to fulfill it. She walked the Via Dolorosa of Judges 11, so that we might recognize the path when God Himself walked it to Golgotha.