Today’s name, naval, a villain, is biblical, and it appears both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. Naval is also a name in the Bible. As the story concerning each character unfolds, we learn how closely connected is the HEBREW name to the narrative. It often demonstrates how the Biblical name foreshadows the life events of each personality. The derogatory name we discuss today, Naval, is actually a name of a person in the Bible; although, English translations and especially transliteration of biblical names are almost always distorted, and he is wrongly called Nabal in most English Bibles:
“And the name of the man was Nabal; and the name of his wife Abigail; and she was a woman of good understanding, and of a beautiful countenance; but the man was churlish and evil in his doings; and he was of the house of Caleb”
This description foreshadows well the evil character of Naval, and if you read the rest of the chapter, you’ll find out that Naval deserved his name. As we mentioned many times before, the English translation of the Bible is also at times disloyal to the true meanings of some Hebrew words and tends to soften some words that sound too harsh to the translators. This was sort of an attempt to be ‘politically correct’ in their time. Because of this kind of ill translation, you’ll find that the word ‘naval’ is translated many times as ‘fool.’ Just look at the word ‘villain’ and ‘naval,’ and you can hear the similarity right away – all the three Hebrew root letters, N.V.L are found in the English word as well. This distortion is severe because a fool has no choice; his foolishness is given, whereas being a villain requires malice. Here is an example where the translator had ‘softened’ ‘villain’ and ‘wickedness’ into ‘fool’ and ‘folly.’
“For the fool speaks folly, and his heart works iniquity, to practice hypocrisy, and to utter error against the Lord, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail”
This distortion goes on in almost every occurrence of ‘naval’ in the Bible, with just a few exceptions:
“Save me from all my transgressions; do not make me the scorn of the villain”
In reviewing the words of Jesus, we can see why calling someone by the name ‘naval’ is punishable by hell’s fire!
“But I say unto you, ‘That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, ‘Raca,’ shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, ‘Thou fool,’ shall be in danger of hell fire”
Especially here, you can see the ill translation. Common sense can tell that a person who calls another fool or silly by no means deserves hell fire. The Hebrew here says ‘villain’ not ‘fool.’
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