The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III

Shalmaneser III was the King of Assyria from 859 - 824 B.C.  He would have ruled about the same time as when Elisha was prophet.  Shalmaneser III led a campaign from modern day Northern Iraq into Southeastern Turkey.  The black obelisk pictured above was built to commemorate that campaign.  The text of the obelisk reads as follows:

In the seventh year of my reign I marched against the cities of Khabini of Til-Abni.  Til-Abni, his stronghold, together with the cities round about it, I captured.  I marched to the source of the Tigris, the place where the water comes forth.  I cleansed the weapon of Assur therein; I took victims for my gods.  I held a joyful feast.  A mighty image of my majesty I fashioned; the glory of Assur, my lord, my deeds of valor, all I had accomplished in the lands, I inscribed thereon and I set it up there.

Shalmaneser III is the conquerer and when he conquers the land he sets up an image of himself as a marker of the glory of his god Assur.  Assur was the chief deity of the Assyrians.  Shalmaneser III as the representative of Assur builds an image of himself in order to claim the territory as belonging to Assur.  This is the ancient near eastern conception of the image of god.

In Genesis, man in created as God's image and given the task of subduing and having dominion over the earth.  As man accomplished this task, God's glory would spread throughout the earth in the same way that Assur's glory would as the image of Shalmaneser III "the glory of Assur" was set up in the newly conquered territory.

The text also states Shalmaneser III cleansed his weapon.  The cleansing of the weapon is a motif that goes back to the time of Sargon the Great way back in the 23rd century B.C.  Sargon the Great was also from modern day Northern Iraq and created the first empire by conquering all the territory to the south along the Tigris and Euphrates river.  When Sargon reached the Persian gulf, he cleansed his weapon in the water symbolized his conquest had come to in.  Similarly, the rest talked about in Genesis refers to the cessation of conflict and the beginning of the rule of the king over the conquered land.

So in the text, Shalmanesser III conquers his enemies, enters his rest, and the sets up his image to mark his rule.  In Genesis 1 we find that God does something similar.   God creates the universe, enters His Sabbath, and sets up His image by creating man.

There are some differences mostly as a result that the Genesis 1 account of creation seems to purposely challenge other Ancient Near Eastern creation accounts.  God's creation does result from battle as is common with most ancient creation stories.  Instead God effortlessly creates the universe merely by speaking it into existence.   God is pictured, not as a warrior, but as a craftsman.  As a result, God has no weapons to cleanse.  The image of God is also not limited to the king, but is extended to Adam and all Adam's descendants.