Ezra 4:10

And the rest of the nations whom the great and noble Asnappar brought over,.... The river Euphrates: and set in the cities of Samaria; placed there in the room of the Israelites carried captive; this

And the rest of the nations whom the great and noble Asnappar brought over, and set in the cities of Samaria, and the rest that are on this side the river, and at such a time. No JFB commentary on these verses.

Asnappar; either Esar-haddon, or some other person then of great eminency, especially with his subjects and followers, who was captain of this colony, and conducted them hither. On this side the river, to wit, Euphrates. At such a time: the date of the epistle was particularly expressed in the epistle, but here it was sufficient to note it in the general.

Ezra 4:10 And the rest of the nations whom the great and noble Asnappar brought over, and set in the cities of Samaria, and the rest [that are] on this side the river, and at such a time.Ver. 10. The great and noble Asnapper] Some great commander under the Assyrian monarch. There is, they say, a greatness belluine, and a greatness genuine. Asnapper, notwithstanding his big-swollen titles, might be rather great than good; and more notable than noble, Nobilitas sola est atque unica virtus (Juvenal). On this side the river] That ancient river, the river Euphrates, which the more I see the more I admire, saith one.

(10) Asnapper cannot be Esar-haddon, but was probably his chief officer. And at such a time.—And so forth.

Verse 10. The great and noble Asnapper] Whether this was Shalmaneser, or Esar-haddon, or some other person, learned men and chronologists are not agreed. The Syriac terms him Asphid; but of this person we know no more than we do of Asnapper. He might have been the military officer who was appointed to escort this people to Judea.

10. and the rest of the nations] Implying that the number was not nearly exhausted by these nine names. whom the great and noble Asnappar] R.V. Osnappar. This name is nowhere else mentioned in the O.T. Who this Osnappar was, has been much disputed. Some have identified him with Esarhaddon, conjecturing that this was either another name or an honorific title. Others have supposed him to be a general commanding Esarhaddon’s armies. But the name nowhere occurs in the Inscriptions as a second name or as a title of Esarhaddon, even if it were probable that having been called Esarhaddon in Ezra 4:2 he should here be called by a different name or title without any explanatory word. No general appears of this name. And the manner of the allusion presupposes his royal dignity. Moreover, neither Esarhaddon nor any general of his invaded Elam. Scholars now begin to accept the ingenious and most probable suggestion that ‘Osnappar’ is the Aramaic attempt to reproduce the name of Assur-bani-pal, the great Assyrian king. He was the only Assyrian king who captured Susa and could carry off ‘Susanchites’; no king so fully deserved the titles of ‘great and noble’; this name (‘Assur the father of the son’) by a strong contraction of the middle word, is not so far removed from the sound of ‘Osnappar’, especially if the final ‘1’ of ‘pal’ is changed to ‘r’ (cf. ‘Pôrus’ for ‘Pul’, or ‘Babiru’ for ‘Babilu’), and the ‘r’ of ‘Assur’ is weakened to ‘n’ (cf. Nebuchadrezzar and Nebuchadnezzar) = Assun … par. Assur-bani-pal reigned 42 years (668–626). The records of his brilliant and successful reign have recently been deciphered (G. Smith’s Assurbanipal, p. 187). His arms were everywhere victorious. The severest contest in which he was engaged was with his own brother Sassumukem, governor of Babylon, who rebelled against him. The rebel’s death and the capture of Babylon (646) ended the struggle. But this fact in conjunction with his great conquest of Elam explains the joint mention of Babylonians, Susanchites and Elamites among the colonists, whom he transplanted into Samaritan territory. It appears then that Assur-bani-pal by introducing his colonists into Samaria was the author of the fourth colonization. It would be wasted labour to try to identify the nationalities of Ezr 4:9 with the names recorded in 2 Kings 17:24 in connexion with a different colonization. in the cities of Samaria] R.V. ‘in the city of Samaria’.—The word in the Aramaic is singular, cf. Ezra 4:17. The other cities are covered by the next phrase. and the rest that are on this side the river] R.V. and in the rest of the country beyond the river. In these words two things deserve to be noted. (1) The words ‘beyond the river’ clearly indicate the country W. of the Euphrates. The names of the nationalities who send the letter are presented in the light in which they would appear to the receiver, i.e. the king, at Susa to the E. of the Euphrates.

10. The great and noble Asnapper — Some have supposed that Asnapper is another name, or another form of the name, of Shalmanezer, or of Esar-haddon, and such a supposition is especially plausible