“For thus says the Lord Yahweh, At the end of forty years I will gather the Egyptians from the peoples where they have been scattered, and I will bring again the captivity of Egypt, and will cause them to return to the land of Pathros, to the land of their origin, and they will be there a base kingdom. It will be the basest of the kingdoms, neither will it any more lift itself above the nations. And I will diminish them that they will no more rule over the nations.”
Many of the Egyptians who left would again be restored to their land, but never again to lord it over their world. They would be restored to the southern part of the kingdom, Pathros, and forever be a lowly kingdom. That this latter has been so is undoubted, for once they had been humbled by the Medo-Persians they were never really strong again. Yahweh had ‘diminished' them.