If what you're building is actually a table, use table markup; that's the semantically correct markup. Just don't use it for something like a sidebar or footer, or otherwise for positioning.
But even if you use a div, as long as the semantic content makes sense without the div, you're fine. For instance, put one div with your article content starting with an appropriate heading tag, and another div for your navigation. Without the CSS, it still makes sense to have a section for content and a section for navigation.
Also, there is actually CSS markup to make something look like a table, if that's what you want; see http://caniuse.com/#feat=css-table for instance.
If you're building a navigation area, a callout, or some similar semantically significant sidebar, take a look at https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/dom.html#sectioning-c... for the nav and aside elements.
But even if you use a div, as long as the semantic content makes sense without the div, you're fine. For instance, put one div with your article content starting with an appropriate heading tag, and another div for your navigation. Without the CSS, it still makes sense to have a section for content and a section for navigation.
Also, there is actually CSS markup to make something look like a table, if that's what you want; see http://caniuse.com/#feat=css-table for instance.