Bible Person

Jabal

Meaning: which glides away · Male · 1 cross reference

Jabal is a descendant of Cain and is remembered as the father of those who dwell in tents and keep livestock. He belongs to the early Genesis portrait of human cultural development east of Eden. First appears in Gen 4:20.1

AI summary: Jabal matters because his single cross reference links a particular household line with a major stage of human social and economic development. The entry shows how Genesis traces the rise of pastoral culture within a world already marked by estrangement from God. Taken together, the material presents Jabal as an ancestral culture-founder in the line of Cain.1

Central Figure

Jabal

Meaning: which glides away

A stream, a descendant of Cain, and brother of Jubal; “the father of such as dwell in tents and have cattle” (Gen.