λεπίς

From the study of Acts 9:18

Range of meaning

A thin flake or scale. It is used of fish scales, of thin plates hammered from metal, of flakes of bark or stone, and in medical writers of flakes or crusts coming off skin or a healing sore (LSJ; BDAG s.v. λεπίς). It comes from the verb λέπω, 'to peel.'

Against the English

'Scales' makes most English readers picture fish scales. That is one real sense of the word, but the root idea is 'something that peels off.' 'Flakes' or 'crusts' may give the picture more accurately. All the major versions keep Luke's 'like' ('something like scales', 'as it were scales'), and they are right to.

How it drifted

The word itself has not drifted much. The phrase built on it has: 'the scales fell from my eyes' became an English proverb for a sudden realisation, and that pulls readers toward a purely mental event (see drift).

Used elsewhere in the period

The Greek Old Testament (LXX) uses λεπίδες for the 'scales' of clean fish (Lev 11:9–12) and, as I recall, for hammered metal plates (Num 17:3 LXX [16:38 Eng]). The closest parallel is Tobit 11:12–13, where blind Tobit's eyes are treated and the white films 'peel off' (the related verb λεπίζω) from the corners of his eyes, and he sees. Hippocratic and later medical writers use λεπίς for flakes shed from the body.