Osnappar

Osnappar was an Assyrian king—almost certainly Ashurbanipal (669–631 BC), the last great Assyrian ruler—who is cited by the Samaritans in their letter to Artaxerxes as the king who had settled them in Samaria: 'the great and noble Osnappar brought us here and settled us in the city of Samaria' (Ezra 4:10). The identification with Ashurbanipal is supported by the chronological context and the resemblance of the names in Aramaic transmission. This reference preserves a memory of the Assyrian policy of population transfer that reshaped the ethnic composition of the northern provinces.