Tubal was one of Japheth's seven sons and a grandson of Noah. He is regarded as the ancestor of the peoples in eastern Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey/Caucasus region). Tubal is mentioned several times in the Old Testament, both in the table of nations in Genesis and in prophetic texts by Isaiah and Ezekiel, where his descendants are linked to trade and military power.
Tubal is listed as one of Japheth's seven sons in the table of nations in Genesis 10, which describes how the peoples of the earth spread out after the Flood.
19I will set a sign among them, and from among them I will send survivors to the nations—to Tarshish, to Put and Lud who draw the bow, to Tubal and Greece, and to the distant coastlands that have never heard my fame or seen my glory. And they will proclaim my glory among the nations.
In Ezekiel's lament over Tyre, Tubal and Meshech are mentioned as trading partners who dealt in slaves and bronze goods with the great commercial city.
In Ezekiel's prophecy about the fall of the nations, Tubal and Meshech are mentioned among the mighty nations that have gone down to Sheol because of their violence and wickedness.
26Meshech and Tubal are there with all their hordes, their graves all around them—all of them uncircumcised, pierced by the sword, because they spread their terror through the land of the living.
27They do not lie with the warriors who fell in ages past, who went down to Sheol with their weapons of war, their swords laid beneath their heads and their guilt resting on their bones—for the terror of these warriors once filled the land of the living.