Question: In the July Berean Call, in the Q&A section...you said that some of the NKJV translation is inaccurate, referencing the use of the word “imagination.” In every reference to the word “imagination” that I found in the KJV it was cross-referenced as “intent” or “thought.” The NKJV uses “intent” or “thought” as the better translation. This is inaccurate?
Response: Imagination is a very important word in the Bible. Read, for example, Genesis:6:5And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
See All..., 11:1-9 and Jeremiah:13:10This evil people, which refuse to hear my words, which walk in the imagination of their heart, and walk after other gods, to serve them, and to worship them, shall even be as this girdle, which is good for nothing.
See All... and 14:14, etc. It plays a key role in the occult and is different from intent (you may intend to do something but stop short of conceiving in your mind how it will be accomplished). The execution is the fruit of imagination, which conceives and visualizes how to perform the deed. God scattered the builders of the tower of Babel because whatever they imagined they would be able to perform, not because all that they intended they could perform. It takes more than intent or desire or ambition to do something.
It is one thing to intend to go to the moon and another thing to conceive in the creative imagination how that can be accomplished. Furthermore, it is one thing to intend a crime and another for the criminal to actually conceive how he will perform it. The desire to rob a bank falls far short of imaginatively planning it, which is essential to effect the desire.