ASENAPPAR
(Asʹe·nap·par) [Asshur is the creator of the heir].
This name appears in a portion of the book of Ezra (4:10) recorded in Aramaic and is evidently a clipped rendering of the name of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal and, like the Persian, which has no letter l, substitutes an r for the final l. In Greek he was called “Sardanapallos” and in Latin “Sardanapalus.” Further basis for applying the name to Ashurbanipal is the reference at Ezra 4:9, 10 to inhabitants of Susa (capital of Elam) as being transplanted to Samaria by Asenappar. (Compare 2 Kings 17:24-28.) History shows Ashurbanipal to be the only Assyrian king in position to carry out such action as regards the inhabitants of Elam.
Ashurbanipal was the son of Esar-haddon (Ezra 4:2) and grandson of the mighty Sennacherib. He seems to have been a contemporary of King Manasseh of Judah (716-661 B.C.E.), whose name is found on a prism of Ashurbanipal listing some twenty kings as tributaries of Assyria. (Compare 2 Chronicles 33:10-13.) Under him, Assyria reached its greatest heights. Apparently appointed as crown prince three or four years earlier, Ashurbanipal took the throne of Assyria upon his father’s death; his brother, Shamash-shumukin, assumed the subordinate throne of Babylon. There is great uncertainty as to the length of Ashurbanipal’s reign.—See CHRONOLOGY.
Ashurbanipal quelled an uprising in Egypt, conquering and ravaging the city of Thebes (No-amon; compare Nahum 3:8-10). Later he was engaged in a lengthy conflict with his brother, the king of Babylon, and after subduing Babylon, destroyed Susa, the capital of Elam. It is this conquest that is the historical basis for relating him to Asenappar of Ezra 4:9, 10.
Ashurbanipal is best known, however, for his literary interests, a unique trait among the formidable Assyrian monarchs. Beginning in 1845 C.E., excavations revealed a great library formed by Ashurbanipal at Nineveh, containing some 22,000 clay tablets and texts. In one inscription he says of himself: “I, Ashurbanipal, learned the wisdom of Nabu, the entire art of writing on clay tablets. . . . I received the revelation of the wise Adapa, the hidden treasure of the art of writing. . . . I considered the heavens with the learned masters. . . . I read the beautiful clay tablets from Sumer and the obscure Akkadian writing which is hard to master. I had my joy in the reading of inscriptions on stone from the time before the flood.”—Light from the Ancient Past (1946), Jack Finegan, p. 181.
Ashurbanipal sent scribes to all the ancient temples of Babylon to copy the literary works contained there. Among the texts found in his royal library are those of the Babylonian accounts of the Creation and of the Flood. In addition to incantations, prayers and hymns, the thousands of cuneiform writings include treatises on history, geography, astronomy, mathematical tables, medicine, grammar, as well as business documents involving contracts, sales and loans. Some of the tablets are as small as one inch square (6.5 square centimeters) while others measure up to fifteen inches by eight and a half inches (38.1 by 21.5 centimeters). They are viewed as the principal source of information for secular history of the Assyrian Empire and its monarchs.
Historical information about the end of Ashurbanipal’s reign is uncertain. In discussing this, The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible (Vol. 1, p. 257) states: “With the year 639, the sources for Assyrian history cease, . . . No explanation can be given for this curious blackout. With appalling suddenness, the Empire disintegrated.”—See ASSYRIA.