The Peoples of Scripture – Part I Lesson 6: The Peoples of Tabal: NJCOC Adult Bible Class

The Peoples of Scripture – Part I 8/26/2026
Lesson 6: Tubal — The Peoples of Tabal
Adult Bible Class — North Jackson church of Christ

In this lesson, we continue our journey through the Table of Nations by examining Tubal, one of the sons of Japheth listed in Genesis 10. Tubal takes us into the mountains and highlands of ancient Anatolia, where the biblical name is most commonly associated with Tabal, a people known from the royal inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian kings. Yet the trail is not entirely straightforward. Later Greek and Jewish writers locate peoples they associated—or whom later interpreters have associated—with Tubal in different parts of Anatolia and the Caucasus, reminding us to distinguish carefully between what the evidence demonstrates, what it suggests, and what remains uncertain.

Together, we’ll travel north of the Taurus Mountains into a landscape that once belonged to the wider Hittite-Luwian world of the Late Bronze Age. We’ll consider what happened when the Hittite Empire and other Bronze Age palace civilizations collapsed around 1200 BCE, and how peoples and cultural traditions survived even when the political structures surrounding them disappeared. When the written record becomes clearer again, the Assyrian kings encounter the small kingdoms of Tabal. Through their inscriptions, the writings of Herodotus and Josephus, and monuments such as the remarkable relief of King Warpalawa at İvriz, we’ll explore the different traces these ancient peoples left behind. Finally, we’ll return to Scripture, where Tubal appears in Isaiah and Ezekiel and becomes increasingly associated with another son of Japheth whom we will meet next: Meshech.

In this lesson we explore:
The identification of biblical Tubal with Assyrian Tabal
The Anatolian highlands north of the Taurus Mountains
The relationship between Tabal and the older Hittite-Luwian world
The Late Bronze Age collapse and the survival of Anatolian peoples and cultures
Tuwanuwa, Tuwana, and continuity across the Bronze and Iron Ages
The small kingdoms of Tabal in Neo-Assyrian records
King Warpalawa of Tuwana
The Tibareni described by Herodotus and their possible relationship to Tubal
Josephus and his identification of Tubal’s descendants with the Caucasian Iberians
The difference between Caucasian Iberia and the Iberian Peninsula
The limits of tracing ancient peoples across centuries of migration and cultural change
Highland agriculture, livestock, metalworking, and trade
Tubal, Javan, and Meshech in the international marketplace of Tyre
The İvriz relief and the Hieroglyphic Luwian inscriptions of the Tabalian world
Tubal in Isaiah and Ezekiel
The repeated biblical association of Tubal and Meshech
What ancient sources can—and cannot—tell us about the descendants of Genesis 10

About the Series
The Peoples of Scripture: Tracing the Table of Nations Through the Bible is a study of Genesis 10 that explores the historical, geographical, archaeological, and biblical background of the nations descended from Noah after the Flood. Rather than passing quickly over the names in the Table of Nations, this series seeks to understand who these peoples were, where they lived, how they lived, what traces they left behind, and where they appear throughout the biblical story.

Course Handbook & Materials
Companion handbook:
The Peoples of Scripture: A Handbook to the Nations of the Bible

Lesson slides and additional course resources are available here:
Peoples of Scripture Course Materials

Series Playlist
The Peoples of Scripture Playlist

North Jackson church of Christ
North Jackson church of Christ

Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible® (NASB 1995).
© 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.