TUBAL

(Tuʹbal).

One of the seven sons of Japheth. (Gen. 10:2; 1 Chron. 1:5) The name is thereafter used as referring to a people or land and usually in association with Meshech, the name of another of Japheth’s sons. Tubal, along with Javan and Meshech, engaged in trading with Tyre, dealing in slaves and copper articles. (Ezek. 27:13) Tubal was included in Ezekiel’s dirge over Egypt as being among the “uncircumcised” ones with whom the Egyptians would lie in Sheol, because of the terror they had wrought. (Ezek. 32:26, 27) They also are included among those uniting with “Gog of the land of Magog” who is called the “head chieftain of Meshech and Tubal” and who comes storming out of “the remotest parts of the north” in a fierce attack against Jehovah’s people. (Ezek. 38:2, 3; 39:1, 2; see GOG No. 2.) In another prophecy, Jehovah foretells that he will send envoys to proclaim his glory to Tubal, Javan and other lands.—Isa. 66:19.

Tubal thus lay to the N of Israel but not so distant as to be out of commercial contact with Tyre in Phoenicia. Most authorities consider the name to refer to the same people as the Tabal or Tabali of Assyrian inscriptions, where Tabal and Mushku (evidently Meshech) are frequently mentioned together. Herodotus, some centuries later, also listed them together as the Ti·ba·re·noiʹ and the Moʹskhoi. On this basis the land of Tubal is considered to have been situated (at least in Assyrian times) to the NE of Cilicia in eastern Asia Minor. The existence of copper mines in this region coincides with the Bible account.