INQUIRE. A word whose greatest significance lies in consulting God with regard to His will. Various terms may be used in this connection (such as OT words דָּרַשׁ, H2011, שָׁאַל, H8626, בָּקַר, H1329), all of which signify “to ask,” “seek from,” “inquire,” “search into,” or related ideas. People of Israel would come to Moses to inquire of God in a dispute (Exod 18:15; cf. 33:7-11). The priestly ephod was a kind of pouch attached to the breastpiece of the high priest in which the sacred lots Urim and Thummim were placed (Exod 28:28-30). Joshua was to come to the priest to inquire of God and receive answer by the use of the lot to determine when Israel should move (Exod 28:30). David resorted to the ephod on occasion when he was fleeing from Saul (1 Sam 23:9-12). Saul used the same method to decide a vexed question (1 Sam 14:41). When denied divine guidance by this means Saul resorted to an unlawful medium (1 Sam 28:6, 7). Mediums, wizards and other such forms of divination were under God’s ban (Isa 8:19; cf. Deut 18:10-12). Later on people would inquire of God by prophets, as King Jehoshaphat did of Elisha (2 Kings 3:11f.; cf. Jer 42:2-7). On Josiah’s orders even Hilkiah the priest went with other leaders to inquire of Huldah the prophetess (2 Kings 22:12-16). In the NT direct prayer is the prevailing form of inquiry, both by teaching (James 1:5), and by practice, as in the case of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matt 26:39), and Paul, when he inquired of God about his nagging thorn in the flesh (2 Cor 12:7-9).

Bibliography R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel (1961), 349-353.

I.N.R.I. These letters constitute the abbreviation of the supposed Lat. inscr. on the cross of Jesus: Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum—“Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” All four gospels mention the inscr. but vary as to the contents. The traditional Lat. wording of the title seems to be based on John 19:19 rather than on the synoptic parallels. The abbreviation INRI is ascribed by tradition to Helena, Emperor Constantine’s mother, who claimed to have discovered it on a board (with the three crosses found in a cave identified as the holy sepulchre. Cf. Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen, II, 1-2). It appears in paintings of the crucifixion by M. Munkacsy, F. Pesellino, Ed. Burne-Jones.