(1) The sixth son of Japheth (Gen. x. 2; 1 Chron. i. 5).
    (2) The race descended from him.  In conjunction with Javan and Tubal, they traded in the Tyrian markets in slaves and vessels of copper or bronze (Ezek. xxvii. 13).  They were proverbial for their savagery (Psalm cxxi. 5—A.V. and R.V.).  Sometimes they with their allies of Tubal lost heavily in battle (Ezek. xxxii. 26).  They were allies or subjects of Gog, who is called the "prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal" (xxxviii. 2, 3; xxxix. 1—R.V.).  Meshech and Tubal are associated together as Muská and Tublá in the Assyrian inscriptions just as they are in the Bible.  In the days of Sargon and Sennacherib their settlements extended as far south as Cilicia, in the southern part of Asia Minor, from which they were gradually driven northward to near the Black Sea.  Herodotus calls the two races the Moskhoi and Tibarenoi, and locates them in one of the Iberias (Georgia), Armenia, and Colchis, east of the Black Sea.  Like the typical modern Georgians, they were of the Alarodian race, white in skin, but neither Aryan nor Shemitic (Gesenius; Sayce's Races of the Bible, etc.). (The Sunday School Teacher's Bible Manual, Hunter, 1894)