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ASHURBANIPAL
Esarhaddon’s son and the Assyrian ruler (669–633 BC) who reigned in the years during which kings Manasseh, Amon, and Josiah governed the southern kingdom of Judah. The northern kingdom of Israel, whose capital was Samaria, had fallen in 722 BC to another powerful Assyrian ruler, Sargon II.
Throughout his life, Ashurbanipal (also spelled Assurbanipal) had to fight continually to retain, regain, and defend his empire, which included Babylonia, Persia, Syria, and Egypt. Though his chief interests were evidently cultural, he was required to spend most of his time, and almost all the resources of his empire, maintaining the submission of conquered peoples, putting down a civil war fomented under the leadership of his brother, and coping with constant border skirmishes.
Much of what we know about the culture of ancient Mesopotamia—historical facts, religion, legends, and lore—comes from the cuneiform literature collected by Ashurbanipal and deposited in a large library he built in Nineveh, his capital. The remains of this library, discovered about a century ago and now in the British Museum, continue to have impact on biblical knowledge. Without doubt his library has been his most significant memorial.
Ashurbanipal was evidently the Assyrian monarch who sent alien people into Samaria (Ezr 4:10). Deportation of conquered peoples was standard Assyrian policy, which accounts for the assimilation and disappearance of the ten tribes of Israel after its fall to Sargon II. In Ezra 4:10 the Assyrian king is called Osnappar, a transliteration of the Hebrew spelling. The consonantal similarity of the Hebrew word to the Assyrian name Ashurbanipal, plus the list of conquered peoples mentioned in the text, point to Ashurbanipal as the most likely identification.
By 630 BC the Assyrian Empire was experiencing difficulty in maintaining its cohesiveness, and after Ashurbanipal’s death it could no longer sustain itself. Innumerable Assyrian soldiers had died on faraway battlefields; mercenaries and captives pressed into the military did not serve well. Moreover, hordes of barbarians from the steppes of Asia battered Assyria from the outside. Vassal Babylon successfully revolted. Though a mere shadow of its former glory, Egypt also slipped from its Assyrian yoke. Ashurbanipal’s sons were not equal to the task. Probably no one could have been. In less than 20 years a relatively weak coalition of enemies surrounded Nineveh and in 612 BC razed the city. A spark of resistance continued at nearby Haran, but within months it was snuffed out by Median troops. By the same ruthless, unrestrained cruelty with which it ruled its empire, Assyria perished.
The demise of Assyria gave a new lease on life to the tiny kingdom of Judah. Some scholars place Ashurbanipal’s death in King Josiah’s eighth year of reign (cf. 2 Chr 34:3-7). As Assyria lost its grip, the resulting vacuum brought back independence by default. Young King Josiah was able to begin and to consummate the most sweeping spiritual revival and political reforms in Judah’s history. See Assyria, Assyrians; Kings, Books of First and Second.