Using Semitic languages as an interpretive guide, and paying particular attention to a language with some apparent connections to Nephite linguistic patterns and with a wide semantic range for the word translatable as "skins;' I have argued that one can understand the mention of the Lamanites receiving a "skin of blackness" as referring to spiritual darkness rather than physical pigmentation. By way of summary, in biblical Aramaic, the term for skin, 'Ctr, has a metaphorical sense and can refer not only to pigmentation but to "chaff" or "scales" that fall off of wheat when it is ripe for harvest. This meaning closely parallels the reference to the Lamanites having their "scales of darkness" removed in 2 Nephi 12 (LDS 30).