or THUBAL-CAIN, son of Lamech the bigamous, and of Zillah, Gen 9:29. The Scriptures tell us, that he was the father and inventor, or master, of the art of forging and managing iron, and of making all kinds of iron-work. There is great reason to believe that this was the Vulcan of the Heathens.
Tu´bal-Ca´in, son of Lamech and Zillah, to whom the invention of the art of forging metals is ascribed in Gen 4:22 [SMITH].
Son of Lamech and Zillah, inventor of the art of forging metals, Gen 4:22 .\par
Tu’bal-cain. The son of Lamech, the Cainite, by his wife, Zillah, Gen 4:22. (B.C. about 3000). He is called "a furbisher of every cutting instrument of copper and iron."
Son of Lamech and Zillah. He was an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron, or a forger of every kind of brass and iron tool. Gen 4:22.
It is remarkable, and it is doubtless not without a purpose, that these metals should be mentioned so early. It quite confutes the theory that all mankind have risen from some degraded position, and that they must have passed long periods in using stone implements before they used metals. This may be true of some who fell far below the moral status of Adam and Eve after their fall. Rom 1:24; Rom 1:26 explains much: "God gave them up " to their lusts because they turned their backs on Him.
By: Emil G. Hirsch, Ira Maurice Price, Samuel Krauss
Brother of Jabal and Jubal, sons of Lamech, who appear to have been the originators of several industries and arts. The correctness of the Masoretic text (
) of Gen. iv. 21-22, describing Tubal-cain, is in dispute. Holzinger and Gunkel maintain that 
was a marginal gloss to 
, and that, as in verses 20 and 21, there stood before 
originally 
. This would give Tubal-cain a position in metal industries comparable with those of his brothers in their lines. The Septuagint, however, omits any equivalent of 
. This fact is noted by Dillmann, Wellhausen, and others, who think that "Tubal" originally stood alone, and 
, being a later addition, was translated "smith."
Tubal is identified (by Dillmann, Schrader, and Delitzsch) with the Assyrian Tobal, a people living southeast of the Black Sea, and known in later history as the Aryan people, the Tibareni, with whom Phenicia (Ezek. xxvii. 13) traded for articles of bronze (A. V. "brass"). This fact would seem to point to the correctness of the view that "Tubal" originally stood alone and that the bearer of that name was the progenitor of a people whose chief industry was the production of vessels, instruments, and other objects of bronze and iron.
E. G. H. I. M. P.
As stated above, the Septuagint text calls the inventor "Tobel" ("Tubal"). An apocryphal tradition adds "Ḳainan" to the name ("The Book of the Bee," ed. Budge, ch. xix.). This variance of tradition continues in later times. Philo of Byblus (in Eusebius, "Præparatio Evangelica," i. 10) names two brothers as the inventors, one of whom was called "Chrysor" (
). These brothers discovered enchantment and sorcery as well as the art of working in iron (comp. 
and 
; also 
and 
), and invented rafts and various fishing-implements.
TUBAL-CAIN.—In Gen 4:22 ‘the father of every forger of copper and iron’ (so read, with slight textual correction), i.e. the founder of the guild or profession of metal-workers. The name seems to be made up of Tubal (or the Tibareni, noted for production of bronze articles (Eze 27:13)) and Cain (‘smith’), as the ancestor of the Kenites or ‘Smiths.’
J. F. McCurdy.