Tubal, tu'-bal (Heb.)–diffusibility; diffusive motion; owing forth; welling; owing copiously; leading; conducting; bringing forth; jubilation; shout of joy; triumphal song.

a A son of Japheth and grandson of Noah (Gen. 10:2); also b a people descended from him (Ezek. 27:13).

Meta. Noah's three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, represent the threefold being of man: the spiritual, the physical, and the mental. Japheth signifies the intellect or reason, the mental realm. Tubal, a son of Japheth (meaning diffusibility, flowing forth, welling, flowing copiously, leading, conducting, bringing forth, jubilation, triumphal song), bespeaks the expanding possibilities of the consciousness of man, with the joy and the good that result from increased understanding. (See JAPHETH.)

Tubal-cain, tu'-bal-cain (Heb.)–diffusion of Cain; diffusion of worldly possessions; central diffusion; flowing of centralized might; mineral principle; physical power; mercury; metals and the instruments made from them.

Son of Lamech by Zillah. He was “the forger of every cutting instrument of brass and iron” (Gen. 4:22).

Meta. Cain (centralization, acquisition, that which draws to itself) signifies the sense selfishness of an individual centralized in his own physical being.