The Greek noun herpeton means 'reptile,' 'creeping thing,' or 'crawling creature.' Derived from herpō ('to creep, crawl'), it encompasses snakes, lizards, and other reptiles. It appears four times in the New Testament, twice in Peter's vision at Joppa (Acts 10:12; 11:6) and twice in theological contexts (Romans 1:23; James 3:7).
Acts 10:12 and 11:6 place herpeta (reptiles) in the vision of the great sheet, which contains all kinds of animals including those considered unclean by Jewish law. God's command 'Kill and eat' and the declaration 'Do not call anything impure that God has made clean' (Acts 10:15) use the imagery of herpeta to break down the ethnic and ritual barriers between Jew and Gentile.
Romans 1:23 uses herpeta as the nadir of idolatrous degradation: humanity exchanged the glory of the immortal God for 'images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.' The descending order — human → bird → animal → reptile — charts the progressive debasement of idol worship.