The Greek noun lepis means a scale (of a fish) or a flake — a thin, plate-like layer that peels or falls away. It appears once in the New Testament in the dramatic account of Paul's restoration of sight.
Lepis appears in Acts 9:18 — 'Immediately, something like scales (lepides) fell from Saul's eyes, and he could see again.' This is one of the most vivid physical-spiritual metaphors in Scripture. The one who had been 'breathing out murderous threats' (Acts 9:1), whose vision was totally distorted by religious zeal divorced from knowledge of Christ, has his sight restored when scales fall away. The lepis that blinds is more than physical; it represents the theological blindness that makes us see the world without Christ. Paul himself later writes that a 'veil' covers the reading of Moses (2 Corinthians 3:14–15) for those who do not know Christ — but 'when anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.' Every conversion is the falling of lepides.