July 25, 2024
King Ashurbanipal was the last great Assyrian king, ruling 668 - 631 BC. He is mentioned in the Bible, Ezra 4:10, as either Ashurbanipal or Osnappar/Asnappar, depending on your translation. "Ashurbanipal" is the Akkadian form of the name while "Osnappar/Asnappar" is the Aramaic form.
His grandfather was Sennacherib, the infamous king who attacked King Hezekiah in Jerusalem after conquering Lachish, the second most important city of the Kingdom of Judah. According to 2 Kings 19:35, an angel of the Lord killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers, which forced Sennacherib to go home, where he would be killed by his sons.
Ashurbanipal had a set of reliefs made of him killing lions. Lots of them. He did it as a royal sport, image building (he is more powerful than a lion) and because lions were actually a problem killing people and animals. Think pest control.
His distant predecessor Ashurnasirpal II from the mid-800s BC claimed to have killed 450 lions, so lion killing was a long-held royal Assyrian tradition.
It is no wonder that when the prophet Nahum prophesied the fall of Assyria in Nahum 2, that he used the metaphor of a lion to represent Assyria.
After Ashurbanipal died, his successors ruled badly, and were conquered by the Babylonians in 609 BC.