The third son of Sennacherib, king of Assyria.  He was his father's favourite son, this partiality so annoying the two elder brothers, Adrammelech and Nergalsharezer, that they assassinated their father, escaping afterwards into Armenia (2 Kings xix. 36, 37; 2 Chron. xxxii. 21; Isa. xxxvii. 37, 38).  When this base murder was perpetrated, in December B.C. 681, Esarhaddon was himself in Armenia fighting with Erimenas, the king of that country.  When the parricides arrived, they joined, not their own brother, but the enemy.  The confederates were, however, soon afterwards defeated in battle, and Esarhaddon left free to ascend the throne.  The partiality of the father had not been misplaced.  Esarhaddon was equally eminent as a military general and a political ruler.  Sennacherib, provoked by the continual revolts of Babylon against the Assyrian domination, had given that city up to plunder in B.C. 691; its restoration was commenced in 680 by Esarhaddon, who made it his winter residence.  This fact completely removes the difficulty felt by some in explaining why Manasseh when taken prisoner by the Assyrian generals was brought to Babylon and not to Nineveh (2 Chron. xxxiii. 11).  Esarhaddon captured Zidon, after which the monuments relate that twelve tribes on the mainland and ten in Cyprus submitted to the Assyrian dominion.  One of those named is Manasseh, king of Judah; another, a certain Abi-bahal, king of Samaria.  Other expeditions followed.  There was one against the Cimmerian barbarians who had descended upon the more civilised south from beyond the Caucasus:  another against the mountaineers of Cilicia, and then against "the children of Eden who were in Telassar" (cf. Isa. xxxvii. 12); and a fourth against the Medes.  Then the king undertook a most difficult enterprise, the conquest of Arabia, and, strange to tell, was pretty successful, penetrating that dangerous region 900 miles, 280 of them through a desert destitute of water.  Among the districts through which he passed, two, Hazu and Bazu, were probably the Uz, or Huz, and Buz of Scripture (Gen. xxii. 21—A.V. and R.V.).  When Sidon was subdued, Tyre was favoured, and the territory of its king enlarged.  He was, however, ungrateful, and listened to advice given him by Egypt to join in throwing off the Assyrian rule.  Esarhaddon blockaded Tyre, but could not capture it while its fleet kept the sea and its resources were supplemented by those of Egypt.  He therefore turned his attention to the latter country, took Memphis, then the capital of Lower Egypt, and drove Tirhakah to or beyond Thebes, the chief city of its upper province.  Then the Assyrian conqueror divided all the valley of the Nile from Thebes to the Mediterranean into twenty satrapies, over the less important of which he set governors of native descent, while over those which were important he placed Assyrian governors.  There appears to be allusion to these events in Isa. xix., xx.  It is highly creditable to Esarhaddon that, when he found himself a conqueror, he had the wisdom to act in a conciliatory manner to the vanquished, which none of his predecessors had done.  After a reign of thirteen years, he died B.C. 668, leaving his eldest son Assur-bani-pal [Asnapper], who for some time previously had been associated with him in the government, to ascend the throne. (The Sunday School Teacher's Bible Manual, Hunter, 1894)