Genesis 4:2 ff names him as the second son of Adam and Chavah (Eve), murdered by his elder brother Kayin (Cain - קין). Havel was a keeper of sheep (ro'eh tson/רעה צאן), where his brother was a farmer (reflecting the conflict between the nomadic Bedou and the sedentary village-dwellers at the dawn of civilisation).
As with Kayin, the writer has worked as many plays on his name into the text as possible, distorting the story for the sake of the puns (for an explanation of Kayin, click the link below his name).
Haval (הבל) = "to breathe", and as such forms a complement to both Lehiyot (להיות) and Lechiyot (לחיות); the difference being, believe it or not, that Lehiyot (לחיות) suggests inhalation, Haval (הבל) exhalation, while Chai is Life itself.
Havel's mother, Chavah (חוה), or Eve, takes her name from the third of these related words, Lechiyot (לחיות) = "to have life", which requires both inhalation and exhalation; this explains her epithet "The Mother Of All Living Things".
The Tetragrammaton YHVH (יהוה) comes from Lehiyot (להיות), as confirmed in Exodus 3:14, "I am that I am - Eheyeh asher eheyeh - אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה".
Given that this is all part of the Creation story, we may draw what poetic inferences we choose! Probably the best is to expunge Adam from the entire story (as being a late Edomite appendix), likewise remove Kayin (for the same reason), and treat Chavah as the wife of the male divinity (Juno to his Jove, or more closely Anat to his Ba'al), who created Mankind by breathing life into Havel, their only son.
Haval (הבל) also came to mean "act or speak vainly" and "seduce to vanity" (i.e. the worship of false idols such as Chavah in her role as Juno wife of Jove! and Anat wife of Ba'al) - whence the most famous pun of them all, the "Vanity of Vanities" - (הֲבֵל הֲבָלִים אָמַר קֹהֶלֶת, הֲבֵל הֲבָלִים הַכֹּל הָבֶל - havel havalim amar Kohelet; havel havalim, ha-kol havel) that opens the Book of Ecclesiastes. But this was a result of the adding on of the Edomite myths of Adam and Kayin, after the shrine had been taken over by them at the time of Kalev (Caleb). The linguistic evolution seems to have followed the story itself first, and then the Redactor's alteration of the story afterwards. Thus:
A connection based on phonetic error appears to have been made, linking Haval (הבל) and Chaval (חבל) = "to tighten a cord" and Chevel (חבל) = "a rope" (e.g. Joshua 2:15). Zechariah 11:7 and 11:14 make of this a crook whose tying equates to a brotherly bond; whence Chaval (חבל) comes to mean "to bind with a pledge" (cf Job 22:6, Proverbs 20:16, 27:13, Deuteronomy 24:6 & 24:17, Exodus 22:25, Amos 2:8), and Chavol (חבול) = "a pledge". Clearly this follows the story, in which Kayin breaks all brotherly bonds by murdering Havel. A similar variation between Chet (ח) and Hey (ה) can be found in Nahar-Nachor, Haran-Charan - for which see my notes to Haran.
Chevel (חבל) also means "a pang" or "pain", and in the Pi'el (intensive) form "to writhe with pain". This follows the agony of Havel's murder.
Chaval (חבל) then came to mean "to spoil", "corrupt", "act corruptly" or "wickedly" (cf Job 34:31, Nehemiah 1:7), "to be vain or act vainly"; in the Niphal (passive) form "to be destroyed" (Proverbs 13:13); in the Pi'el form "to destroy, spoil" (Ecclesiastes 5:5, Isaiah 32:7, 13:5, 54:16, Micah 2:10); references to the Pu'al (active) form can be found in Job 17:1 and Isaiah 10:27. Again the Kayin story is the obvious explanation.
What remains, unconnected to these phonetic errors or deliberate puns, but at the same time connected by further puns and further phonetic errors on the name of Kayin (קין), are the proper meanings of Chevel (חבל) - with a Chet (ח) not a Hey (ה).
Like Kaneh (קנה), it is used to mean "a measuring reed" or "line" (Amos 7:17, 2 Samuel 8:2); "a measured field" as a given share (Joshua 17:14, 19:9); as an inheritance, portion or possession (Psalm 16:6, Deuteronomy 32:9); as "a region" or "area of land" (Deuteronomy 3:4). And best of all, given the fates of both Kayin and Havel, Chevley Mavet She'ol (חבלי מות שאול) are given in Job 18:10 and Chevley Mavet (חבלי מות) and Chevley She'ol (חבלי שאול) in Psalm 18:5-6 as the pangs of death/the underworld, both important in our understanding of mythological tale of David and Sha'ul (Saul), and their relationship as the Lord of the Underworld (Sha'ul/She'ol) and the Beloved of the Mother-Goddess (Yedid-Yah), which is the Beney Yisra-El equivalent of Isis-Osiris, Inanna-Tammuz, Hera-Herakles, Mary-Jesus etc.
Chaval (חבל) = "hurt", "injury" (Daniel 3:25); "damage" (Ezra 4:22); in modern Ivrit it is used idiomatically to mean "waste", or "shame" (in the sense of "what a shame...").
Chovel (חובל) = "a sailor" (even the Bible writer could not get in a pun on this variant of the name!).
But all these latter relate to the correct meaning of Chavel, and are not directly connected to Havel at all. As to the correct pronunciation of the son of Chavah and YHVH, the English Abel is miles out. Haval and Hevel are equally plausible, based on equivalents elsewhere: Lamech is sometimes Lemech, Yared is sometimes Yered, Penu-El is sometimes Peni-El, etc. The "pointed" text regularly varies the pronunciation of names, so that Haval becomes Hevel. Read without vowels, as it would originally have been, this distinction would not be obvious, and one would probably read Haval throughout as this is normative pronunciation of triliteral roots. However, since the "pointed" text is now the established "Masoretic" text, and as we are attempting to follow its pointing throughout...
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