This cone or phallic theory met with a by no means ready reception by Jewish scholars; it had not been broached many days before it was energetically attacked and its destruction sought both by ridicule and argument. It has been admitted, however, that philologically there is something in it, more even, says Dr. Benisch, than its advocate Dr. Beke has made out. The former goes so far as to state that its root, not only in Hebrew, but also in Chaldee and Arabic, primarily designates roundness; and secondarily, that which is the consequence of a round shape, facility of being rolled, speed, and conveyance; consequently, that it may therefore be safely concluded that it would be in Hebrew a very suitable designation for a cone. "Moreover, the same root in the same signification is also found in some of the Aryan languages. Compare the German 'kugel' (ball) and 'kegel' (cone)." The chief objection lies in the fact that there are various passages in the Scriptures where the word occurs, whose contexts clearly show that the idea intended was that of a living creature, and that the unbroken usage of language, from the author of Genesis to that of Chronicles, shows that the term had never changed its signification, viz.: that of calf, bullock, or heifer. In Levit. ix. 2, 3, 8; 1 Sam. xxviii. 26; Ps. xxix. 6; Isa. xi. 6; Isa. xxvii. 10; Mic. vi. 6, for instance, there can be no mistake that the reference is to the living animal, and a reference to the Hebrew concordance shows that the term, inclusive of the feminine (heifer), occurs fifty-one times in the Bible, in twenty-nine cases of which the word indisputably means a living creature. Dr. Benisch therefore asks, "Is it admissible that one and the same writer (for instance, the Deuteronomist) should have used four times this word in the sense of heifer (xxii. 4 and 6; xxi. 3), and once in that of cone (ix. 16) without implying by some adjective, or some turn of language, that the word is a homonyme? Or that Hosea, in x. 11, should clearly employ it in the sense of heifer, and, in viii. 5, in that of cone? A glance at the concordance will show that, in every one of the more important books, the word in question occurs most clearly in the sense of calf, and never in a passage which should render a different translation inadmissible. On what ground, therefore, can it be maintained that, in the days of the author of the 106th Psalm, the supposed original meaning of cone had been forgotten, and that of calf substituted?"