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I finished Louis Feldman's Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World. On page 552, Feldman states:
"Philo, De Vita Mosis 1.27.149, says that the Jews are a nation destined to be consecrated above all others to offer prayers forever on behalf of the human race that it may be delivered from evil and may participate in what is good." According to Feldman, Philo here was responding to a prominent Gentile charge that Jews were clannish and stuck-up (my paraphrase).
I liked what Philo said because it reminded me of a Jewish interpretation of Isaiah 53, which many Christians apply to Jesus Christ, but which many Jews (not all, but many) have related to Israel. According to the Jewish interpretation that I heard, when Isaiah 53:12 talks about the Suffering Servant making intercession for transgressors, that is talking about Jews praying for the nations, the ones who are speaking in Isaiah 53 about their own persecution of the Jewish people, and their bafflement that God has exalted Israel. And Jeremiah 29:7 exhorts the exiled Jews pray for the city where they are captive.
I also think about an argument that Michael Brown (who argues to Jews that Jesus is the Messiah) made in one of his Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus books. Against a Jewish argument that a blood sacrifice is not necessary for atonement because the Ninevites simply repented (without an animal sacrifice) and got forgiveness from God, Brown states that, according to rabbinic Judaism, even God's forgiveness of the Ninevites was based on blood atonement, for the offering of the seventy bulls during the Feast of Tabernacles was for the seventy nations of the world. (For more information on this topic, see here, but this article is not actually by Dr. Brown.)
