Yet Gonçalves insists that this can have no historical basis. Rather, he suggests, this business about Taharqa arriving and Sen-nacherib scrambling away is a literary invention. Its purpose, he proposes, is to reflect a “theological concern.” By casting Taharqa, representing Egypt, as causing the Assyrians’ abject departure, the Second Kings writer is trying to underscore the extent of the arrogant invaders’ humiliation; after all, via the Rab-shakeh, the Assyrians had earlier mocked this same Egypt.
