It is inferred from this, supposing it to be correct, that the primary idea of this and kindred roots, is that of roundness, so that _egel_ may readily mean any rounded figure, such as a globe, cylinder, or cone. "Adopting this," says Dr. Beke,--"a cone, as the true meaning of the Hebrew word in the text, the sense of the transaction recorded will be, that Moses having delayed to come down from the Mount, the Israelites, fearing that he was lost, and looking on the Eternal as their true deliverer and leader, required Aaron to make for them Elohim--that is to say, a visible similitude or symbol of their God who had brought them up out of the land of Mitzraim. Aaron accordingly made for them a golden _cone_, as an image of the flame of fire seen by Moses in the burning bush, and of the fire in which the Eternal had descended upon Sinai, this being the only visible form in which the Almighty had been manifested. Of such a representation or symbol, a sensuous people like the Israelites might without inconsistency say, 'This is thy God, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Mitzraim;' at the same time that Aaron, after having built an altar before it, could make proclamation and say, 'To-morrow is the feast to the Eternal,' that is to say, to the invisible God, whose _eidolon_ or visible image this _egel_ was." It is admitted by the advocates of this theory that there are certain things in the English version which appear adverse to it. For instance, it is said that all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron; and he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf, from which it might be inferred, it is said, that the idol was first roughly moulded and cast by the founder, and then finished by the sculptor. It is urged however, that it is generally admitted by scholars that the original does not warrant this rendering, the words "after he had," which are not in the text, having been added for the purpose of making sense of the passage, which, if translated literally, would read, "He formed it with a graving tool, and made it a golden calf," a statement, says Dr. Beke, which in spite of all the efforts made to explain it, is inconsistent with the rest of the narrative, which repeatedly says, in express terms, that the idol was a molten image.