Who was Tubal-Cain in the Bible?

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, 26 explains much: "God gave them up" to their lusts because they turned their backs on Him.

The occupations of LAMECH's sons help to complete the picture of the Dawn of civilisation. The "pride of life" was also included by the Apostle JOHN as part of the fashion of the world that passes away; and commerce, culture, craftsmanship are each represented, by JABAL, JUBAL and TUBAL-CAIN.

"JABAL, the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle"; he it was who introduced the commercial spirit into pastoral life; making a regular business of what appears previously to have been more a supply for individual and family needs. He is the typical commercial man, the man of business.

JUBAL, the son, was "the father of all such as handle the harp, and the organ (or flute)," that is the inventor of stringed and wind instruments; as old MATTHEW HENRY has it, "If brother JABAL will show them how to get rich, then JUBAL will show them how to be merry." JUBAL is the father of the fine arts, the man of culture. TUBAL-CAIN, or TUBAL the smith, is a metal-worker; with considerable mechanical skill, able to instruct others; the craftsman; the father of mechanical arts and invention.

As a whole, the family of LAMECH present an essentially godless civilisation, finding pleasure, occupation, advancement in a world cursed by sin and stained with the blood of a righteous man; they being all the while completely indifferent to the judgment overhanging the scene, of which warning was given by a contemporary as we shall see farther on in the chapter.

Jabal was the father of such as dwell in tents and keep cattle; Jubal of those who handle the harp and organ, and Tubal-cain was the first worker in brass and iron. It would seem as if Cain's family, having lost God, would now get the utmost out of the present world. The city Enoch thus soon resounded with the strains of music, and with the industrious clang of the smith. Comforts and accomplishments gave character to it. It became, as men would say, the centre of light and learning; and the great commercial depot of the human family. But God had no place there; it was a city of which He was not the builder and maker.

It is very instructive to see what follows. One of his descendants, Lamech, has two wives, and has children. You observe the names of his children, Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal-cain. Sometimes people say what is the use of recording all these names. Why are Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal-cain mentioned? The reason is that God wishes to give us the story of Cain's "way" and Cain's "world." The meaning of Jabal is "moving." He was a true son of Cain, always on the move — always wanting something new. That is the spirit of the world. You must have everything new. You must have a new opera — a new song — a new book, or a new novel. You must have something new. Everything is new, in order to allure and entrap man. Jabal's name is characteristic of the world, it moving." "He was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle." He was the example in the East of what you would call well-to-do people. He was in that sense the starter of commerce. Jubal, whose name means "playing," was "the father of all such as handle the harp and organ." There comes in pleasure; and the next is Tubal-cain, "an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron," — the scientific man. I believe that in the names of these three men you will find the three-fold cord that really binds up society at present.

"Jabal was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle." He was the man that started commerce. He was the inaugurator of the commercial world. Jubal, did not care for moneymaking. His name — "playing" — bespoke his character, and he says, I will go in for pleasure. Jabal, you may get money, if you like, but I am going in for pleasure; and "he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ." Jabal, went in for money, and Jubal, for music; while Tubal-cain was "an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron," — in other words, science and art; that is, I doubt not, the scientific world. Take out of the world the man of commerce, the man of pleasure, and the man of science, and you will find the world empty — cleaned out. Money, music, and science formed Cain's world at the start, and by them Satan holds the world in his hand now more than ever.

Cain's line breaks off abruptly with Tubal-cain. This name means "flowing from Cain." Seven generations having run their course we thus come upon another Cain. The Spirit of God adds no more; a certain moral stamp marks the whole of that evil line.

You have heard men say of certain parents, "They may be justly proud of their family." Lamech, Adah and Zillah, (his two wives), were just such parents. The boys were apparently brought up to be useful, industrious men, and their sister Naamah, (Pleasant), completes a very charming picture of an earthly home. Adah's two sons Jabal and Jubal, were respectively the father of such as dwell in tents and have cattle; and those who handle the harp and the organ; while Tubalcain, (meaning a "pouring forth of Cain", in memory of his famous ancestor), was the father of the metal-working industry, a great and glorious trade that is coming more into its own every day we live. Yes, as Lamech watched the marked success in life of each of his four children he may well have been (from the world's view point) a proud and happy man.

Lamech is "strong;" Adah, "ornament;" Zillah, "tinkling" ("music player" some interpret rather than translate it); Jabal, "the traveller;" Jubal-"the trumpet-blast), Tubal Cain is variously rendered, "worker in ore," "brass of Cain," "issue of Cain;" Naamab, "lovely."

Happily this is not all; nor is that which is of God, though down-trodden, extinct upon earth. In Seth (appointed in the place of Abel, whom Cain slew) we have its resurrection, and henceforth its perpetuation. The line of Cain perished with the old world in the waters of the deluge; with Seth, God begins, as it were, the race of man anew (chap. 5), Cain and the fall being now omitted. Seth is the son of man, so to speak, in his likeness who was made in the likeness of God and blessed. With Seth, there are nine generations unto Noah, in whom once more the earth is also blessed: three triads, for God manifests Himself in as well as to His people; at the end of the second of which Enoch goes to heaven without seeing death, while Noah is God's seed, brought through the judgment to replenish and find his blessing on the earth beyond. The Church of first-born ones and Israel find here very plainly their representatives, to those who have learned from Scripture the respective destinies of each. Fittingly, therefore, does Enoch become the earliest prophet of the Lord's approach (Jude 14.), while the days of Noah are expressly likened, by the Lord Himself, to the time of the coming of the Son of Man. The more we look, the more we shall see the force of the comparison. Infidelity has invited our attention to a correspondence between the two lines of Cain and Seth, and there is a certain correspondence which it will be well to examine. The resemblance of some names pointed out is no doubt superficial; but there are undoubtedly two Enochs and two Lamechs, and the latter close upon the end of the old world. Of the two Enochs, all that is noted is but contrast. The first gives his name to the city which Cain builds as it were in defiance of his sentence, a city whose builder and maker God is not. Enoch, one of a line which have no earthly history, walks with God, and is not, for God has taken him. The two Lamechs have more in common, for alas! the separateness which at first obtained between the worshippers of Jehovah and those in alienation from Him narrowed as time went on. It was when Enos was born that men began to call upon the name of the Lord, for "Enos" is "frail" or "mortal man," and those content to bear that title learn the mercies of a covenant-keeping God. But as time goes on, Lamech succeeds to Enos - strength to weakness, the world and the Church approach; and thus Lamech, like his Cainite representative, has his memorable saying also: pious, and largely true, but with one fatal flaw in it. Lamech called his son's name "‘Noah,' saying, ‘This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands because of the earth which the Lord has cursed.'" And the comfort came, and in Noah, real blessing for the earth from God. Lamech was thus far a true prophet; but the people to whom he spoke, or the survivors of them, with their whole posterity, save Noah's family alone, were all cut off by the flood that preceded the blessing" Is there nothing similar now, when boundary lines are nearly effaced, and the Church has shifted from the Enos to the Lamech-state, and peace is preached in the assurance of good days coming, while intervening judgment, universal for the rejecters of present grace, is completely ignored and set aside? Seth's line has warning as well as comfort for us, then; yet is it after all the line to which God's promise and His blessing cleave, and while the world profits naught by their inventions, it is beautitul to see how He numbers up the years of their pilgrimage. With them alone there is a chronology, for He who telleth the stars "numbers their steps" and "telleth" even "their wanderings." Thus far, then, as to the interpretation of this primeval history as it applies to the larger scale of the world around. But there is a world within which corresponds certainly not less to what these types signify, and which lies apparently yet more within the scope of these Genesis biographies. In this inner world, wherever God has wrought, the same conflict is found, and subject to the same laws. Through death, life; through defeat, victory. In this sphere of the individual experience the conflict is between two natures - the one which is ours as born naturally; the other, as born of God supernaturally: and here, evidently, the order is, "first, that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual." The law of Genesis is thus that the elder gives place to the younger. Cain represents, therefore, that in us which we rightly and necessarily call "the old nature." His name signifies "acquisition, possession;" Abel's, "vapour, exhalation." The contrast between them cannot be questioned, and was prophetic of their lives: Cain possessing himself of that earth on which for man's sake the curse rested, while Abel's life exhaled to God like vapour drawn up by the sun.

There is a profitable lesson to be learnt from a comparison of this chapter with Genesis 6. "Tubal-cain was an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron." The descendants of Cain were endowed with unhallowed skill to make a cursed and groaning earth a delectable spot, without the presence of God. "Bezaleel and Aholiab," on the contrary, were endowed with divine skill to beautify a sanctuary which was to be hallowed and blessed by the presence and glory of the God of Israel.

Copper is spoken of very early in the Scriptures (Gen. 4:22), where Tubal-cain is described as an instructor to those who worked in brass (copper, as We shall hereafter call it). Suggestively, gold is mentioned first and before the fall: "The gold of that land is good" (Gen. 2:11-12). God's glory is first. It may be suggestive also that copper is mentioned in connection with the family of Cain. It is quite striking that copper seems to have been the earlier and more widely used metal, as compared with iron. The "Bronze Age" preceded, we are told, that of Iron. At any rate, implements were made of copper, and by being subjected to hardening preserved their edge, or elasticity, almost as well as iron or steel.

In Cain's family there was also a Lamech as well as an Enoch (v.18), just as was the case in the offspring of Seth (ch.5:18,25). The Lamech in the line of Cain is the first bigamist of whom we read (v.19). His sons by Adah were Jabal and Jubal, the first occupied with trade and commerce, dwelling in tents and keeping livestock; the second a musician. Zillah bore a son to Lamech names Tubal-cain, an instructor of those skilled in brass and iron work. The line of Cain is therefore seen in a foremost place in reference to trade and commerce, the arts and the sciences. Of course the unbeliever concentrates on these things rather than on the knowledge of God, and often the ungodly prosper in the world.

However, linked from the very first with this prosperity are two principles of evil that cannot but undermine the whole society. These are seen in verse 23, corruption and violence. Lamech corrupted God's institution of marriage by having two wives. But he also confesses to his wives that he had been guilty of murder. These two degrading evils have spread throughout all the world, and today are continually advertised in the media, while government unsuccessfully tries to control the wild beastly character of men. However, he claims that he killed the young man because he had been hurt by him, and under these extenuating circumstances he thought he would be more protected from retribution than was Cain. If seven fold judgment fell on one who killed Cain, then the judgment against Lamech's killer would be seventy-sevenfold. Cain is a picture of Israel having killed the Lord Jesus and not confessing their crime. Lamech seems to be a type of Israel too, in a coming day confessing their guilt in having killed the Messiah. Then those nations that are determined to exterminate Israel will be punished with an overwhelming vengeance (Zech.12:9-14).