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We read about Tubal Cain in a brief
but eloquent biographical sketch in Genesis 4, V. 22....
"Tubal Cain an instructor of every artificer in
brass and iron." In other words he is the father
of tool engineers and tool engineering education.
He was one of the sons of Lamech, the
son of Methuselah. His mother was Zillah and his half
brothers were JUbel and Jabal. These three children,
together with a sister, are said to have founded all
the sciences in the world.
Tubal-cain watched his father hunt
and shared with him and other members of the tribe the
anxiety they all felt when one of their scarce, precious
weapons broke or Was carried away in the side of a wounded
animal.
The whole tribe was defenceless and
perhaps without food for days while a new weapon was
being painstakingly fashioned of stone by hand Their
key to survival was production. So Tubal-cain, while
hardly more than a boy, studied the problems of production.
He studied and experimented with metals
from foundry, to forge, to grinding, all processes of
forming and shaping metals.
The same techniques that made arrowheads
were gradually applied to spears, knives and shot swords.
A continuous flow of weapons came from the production
lines out behind old Lamech's hut.
Behind the wall of weapons in the field,
Jubel's commerce and Jabal's arts were free to flourish
and in Lamech's yard the music of Tubal-Cain's forge
made fitting background for the melody of Jabal's oaten
pipes.
But restless Tubal-cain realised he
had to press on for the future to be secured. So he
called in his brothers, his cousins, their slaves and
their children and he taught them those things that
he knew, and they laboured together according to his
abilities and his industry.
When the critical shortage of arms
had been changed to an aboundmg surplus then lines were
converted to the implements of peace - to the production
of brass bowls and lamps. Great light and prospenty
ensured and settled on the land.
Truly it can be said "There were
giants on the earth in those days."
Courtesy Freemasons. NSW & ACT
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