Ashurbanipal in the Bible Encyclopedia - ISBE

a-shoor-ba'-ne-pal (Ashur-bani-apal, "Ashur creates a son"): Before setting out on his last campaign to Egypt, Esarhaddon king of Assyria doubtless having had some premonition that his days were numbered, caused his son Ashurbanipal to be acknowledged the crown prince of Assyria (668 BC). At the same time he proclaimed his son Shamash-shum-ukin as the crown prince of Babylonia. At the father's death the latter, however, was only permitted to become viceroy of Babylonia. Ashurbanipal is generally believed to be the great and noble Osnappar (Ezr 4:10). See OSNAPPAR. If this identification should not prove correct, the king is not mentioned by name in the Old Testament. In the annals of Ashurbanipal there is a list of twenty tributary kings in which Manasseh (written Minse) of the land of Judah is mentioned. With a few exceptions the list is the same as that given by Esarhaddon, his father. In 2 Ch 33:11 ff we learn that the captains of the host of the king of Assyria took Manasseh with hooks and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon. The king to whom reference is made in this passage was either Esarhaddon or Ashurbanipal. If the latter, his restoration of Manasseh was paralleled in the instance of Necho, the vassal king of Memphis and Sais, who also had revolted from Assyria; for he was accorded similar treatment, being sent back to Egypt with special marks of favor, and reinstated upon his throne...