Jeremiah 46:26
And I will deliver them into the hand of those that seek their lives, and into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of his servants: and afterward it shall be inhabited, as in the days of old, saith the LORD. And I will deliver them into the hand of those that seek their lives, and into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of his servants: and afterward it shall be inhabited, as in the days of old, saith the LORD.
Jeremiah 46 is a prophecy concerning Egypt, one of the powers destined to fall before Nebuchadnezzar. Its chronological place belongs at the end of Jeremiah's work, after chapters 40-45 and after chapter 47, showing that the prophecies in the book are not placed in chronological order. In verse 26 the Hebrew word neh-phesh, usually translated soul, is used with the sense of life.
The verse predicts that Egypt would be delivered into the hand of those seeking their lives, that is into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon and into the hand of his servants. This meant invasion and subjugation by him and his people, the terrible of the nations, and that conquest was fulfilled. Afterward Egypt was subjected by the Persians under Cambyses and by the Macedonians under Alexander the Great, then governed by the Ptolemies. It was brought under the Roman yoke about thirty years before the Christian era, and successively ruled by Saracens, Mamelukes, and Turks. For centuries it has thus remained in the hands of strangers, deprived of its natural proprietors, the basest of the kingdoms, no more ruling over the nations, with no more a prince of its own land.