It may be a new revelation to some to be told that in the opinion of some scholars the idol form set up by those foolish idolators was not that of a calf at all, but of a cone. The Hebrew word _egel_ or _ghegel_ has been usually taken to mean calf, but, say these gentlemen, erroneously so, its true signification being altogether different. It is pleaded that it was not at all likely that the Israelites should, so soon after their miraculous deliverance from the house of bondage, have so far forgotten what was due from them in grateful remembrance of that, as to have plunged into such gross and debased idolatry as the adoration of deity under the form of an animal. Also that it would have been inconsistent with their exclamation when they saw the image, "This is thy God, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt," and with Aaron's proclamation, after he had built an altar before the idol for the people to sacrifice burnt offerings on, "To-morrow is a feast to the Lord." It is urged from these expressions that the only reasonable and legitimate inference is, that the golden idol was intended to be the similitude or symbol of the Eternal Himself, and not of any other God. Certainly it is, as we have said, remarkable, and presents a problem not at all easy of solution. Dr. Beke contends that in any case, it is inconceivable that the figure of a calf should have been chosen to represent the invisible God--he concludes, therefore, that the word _egel_ has been wrongly translated. With regard to the etymology of the word, its root _agal_ is declared to be doubtful, Fuerst taking it to mean _to run_, _to hasten_, _to leap_, and Gesenius suggesting that its primary signification in the Ethiopic, "_egel_ denoting, like golem, something _rolled_ or _wrapped together_, an _unformed mass_; and hence _embryo_, _foetus_, and also _the young_, as just born and still unshapen."