From eperotao; an inquiry -- answer.

see GREEK eperotao

1. an inquiry, a question: Herodotus 6,67; Thucydides 3, 53. 68.

2. a demand; so for the Chaldean שְׁאֵלָא in Daniel 4:14 Theod.; see ἐπερωτάω, 2.

3. As the terms of inquiry and demand often include the idea of desire, the word thus gets the signification of earnest seeking, i. e. a craving, an intense desire (so ἐπερωτᾶν εἰς τί, to long for something, 2 Samuel 11:7 — (but surely the phrase here (like לְ שָׁאַל) means simply to ask in reference to, ask about)). If this use of the word is conceded, it affords us the easiest and most congruous explanation of that vexed passage 1 Peter 3:21: "which (baptism) now saves us (you) not because in receiving it we (ye) have put away the filth of the flesh, but because we (ye) have earnestly sought a conscience reconciled to God" (συνειδήσεως ἀγαθῆς genitive of the object, as opposed to σαρκός ῤύπου). It is doubtful, indeed, whether εἰς Θεόν is to be joined with ἐπερώτημα, and signifies a craving directed unto God (Winer's Grammar, 194 (182) — yet less fully and decidedly than in edition 5, p. 216f), or with συνείδησις, and denotes the attitude of the conscience toward (in relation to) God; the latter construction is favored by a comparison of Acts 24:16 ἀπρόσκοπον συνείδησιν ἔχειν πρός τόν Θεόν. The signification of ἐπερώτημα which is approved by others, viz. stipulation, agreement, is first met with in the Byzantine writers on law: "moreover, the formula κατά τό ἐπερώτημα τῆς σεμνοτάτης βουλῆς, common in inscriptions of the age of the Antonines and the following Caesars, exhibits no new sense of the word ἐπερώτημα; for this formula does not mean 'according to the decree of the senate' (exsenatusconsulto, the Greek for which is κατά τά δόξαντα τῇ βουλή), but 'after inquiry of or application to the senate,' i. e. 'with government sanction.'" Zezschwitz, Petri quoted in de Christi ad inferos descensu sententia (Lipsius 1857), p. 45; (Farrar, Early Days of Christianity, i. 138 n.; Kähler, Des Gewissen, i. 1 (Halle 1878), pp. 331-338. Others would adhere to the (more analogical) passive sense of ἐπερώτημα, viz. 'the thing asked (the demand) of a good conscience toward God' equivalent to the avowal of consecration unto him).