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Presentation
The Editors

You are a people holy to the Lord your God;
the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession,
out of all the peoples that are on the face of the earth (Deut. 7:6).
Few biblical concepts have been more misunderstood than this one. The Lord your God has chosen you. Chosen you for what? For honors, for privileges, for empires...? If so, what has gone wrong? Ask the Jewish people, ask any Jew: "What advantages have accrued to you through this chosenness?"
There is only one possible answer: "I have been chosen, not for privilege but for responsibility - for the responsibility of witnessing before all peoples to the God who has chosen me, and to proclaim to all nations through this witness that all without exception are chosen to be the beloved sons and daughters of my, of our God."
This edition tries to examine the various consequences of this particular chosenness whose very aim is universal. Among other things, it seeks to show how relevant for us today is this understanding of the how and why of this choice of God.
To come closer to an appreciation of this mystery is to bring closer to our poor troubled world the fulfilment of the prophecy of Zephaniah:
At that time I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech,
that all of them may call on the name of the Lord and serve him with one accord (Zeph. 3:9).