ASHURBANIPAL ăsh’ ər băn’ ə pəl (Assyrian personal name aššur-bān-apli, “Ashur has created an heir,” traditionally identified with אָסְנַפַּר׃֙ Osnappar, Ezra 4:10). King of Assyria, 669-c. 626 b.c.
1. His reign. In May 672 b.c. Esarhaddon publicly designated Ashurbanipal to be the crown-prince and future ruler of Assyria and his twin brother Shamash-shum-ukin to the same office in Babylonia. Among the vassal kings present to endorse this agreement would have been Manasseh (Akkad., Minsē) of Judah. In 669 b.c. Ashurbanipal came to the throne in Nineveh and continued operations against Egypt, the northern and eastern tribes (Cimmerians and Mannaeans), Elam, the Arabs, and Babylonia. Campaigns in the latter country followed the revolt of Shamash-shum-ukin who interfered with the direct control Ashurbanipal exercised over the strategic centers of Nippur, Erech, and Ur. These dated their documents by the years of the Assyrian king’s reign. Ashurbanipal advanced to support the beleaguered garrisons and defeated the Elamites, cutting off Babylon from its supporting tribesmen. Babylon itself fell after a two-year siege, and Shamash-shum-ukin committed suicide in his burning palace. In 640 b.c. Elam was invaded and Susa (Shusan) sacked, some of its inhabitants being exiled to Samaria (Ezra 4:10).
The end of Ashurbanipal’s reign is obscure, for few contemporary records and references are extant after 639 b.c. The aging monarch seems to have withdrawn to Harran, leaving one son, Ashur-etil-ilāni, in control of Assyria proper and another, Sin-shum-lishir, to oppose the new Chaldean dynasty led by Nabopolasar in 626 b.c. The general decline of the Assyrian authority at this time was perhaps the cause and opportunity for the defection of the outlying vassal states, including Egypt and Judah, which now took steps to assert their independence.
2. Operations in the West. On accession, Ashurbanipal continued the expedition against Egypt on which his father had died. The primary aim was to defeat the Nubian Tirhakah. He, however, retreated to Thebes, and the Assyrians contented themselves with restoring the local Assyrian governors in the Delta and capturing the rebel leaders. At this time Ashurbanipal claims to have received tribute, as had his father, from twenty-two kings of Syro-Pal. including Ba’al, king of Tyre; Manasseh, king of Judah; Qaushgabri, king of Edom; Musuri, king of Moab; Sili-Bel, king of Gaza; Mitinti, king of Ashkelon; Ikausu, king of Ekron. Soon Egypt interfered again in Palestinian affairs and Ashurbanipal despatched a punitive force in 664/3 against Tirhakah’s successor Tandamane (Tanut-Amun) who abandoned Memphis and was besieged in Thebes, which was sacked. The destruction of Thebes (No-Amun) was described in Nahum 3:8-10 and used as an example of what would happen to Nineveh in its turn. Egypt was shown to be an unreliable ally: a “bruised reed” (2 Kings 18:21). Ashurbanipal, relieved of pressure in the N by his alliance with Gyges of Lydia, now turned to punish Arvad and Tyre and left a reinforced garrison at Gezer. In later operations he plundered the Arabs of Kedar, Moab, Edom, and N Arabia, thus effectively isolating the small hill state of Judah from whom, according to one list, he exacted ten minas of silver as tribute.
3. The scholar. Ashurbanipal claimed to be able to read and write the cuneiform script. At Nineveh he amassed copies of Babylonian literary texts, including the epic of creation, hymns, omens, and other traditional and scientific works which formed a royal library representing 6,000 or more texts. He also built extensively at his capitals of Assur and Nineveh, decorating the palace at the latter site with new style sculptures portraying his military and hunting successes.
Bibliography M. Streck, Assurbanipal und die letzten assyrischen Könige (1916); R. C. Thompson, The Prisms of Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal (1931); A. C. Piepkorn, Historical Prism Inscriptions of Ashurbanipal (1933); ANET (1955), 294-300; J. Oates, Iraq, XXVII (1965), 135-259.