Herodotus often mentions 'God'. Which one does he mean?

by hadleeey

While reading Herodotus 'The Histories', I noticed that he often mentions 'God'. Does he mean 'the gods' or is he referencing a specific deity? An example of this is in 1.31: "'Croesus', replied Solon, 'I know God is envious of human prosperity and likes to trouble us; and you question me about the lot of man.'"

Tiako

It really depends on context. The specific Greek is

ὁ δὲ εἶπε "ὦ Κροῖσε, ἐπιστάμενόν με τὸ θεῖον πᾶν ἐὸν φθονερόν τε καὶ ταραχῶδες ἐπειρωτᾷς ἀνθρωπηίων πρηγμάτων πέρι." [Your translation is pretty literal]

I bolded "τὸ θεῖον" which is literally "the god" which in this case is generic (as you guess, no specific god is being referenced). But in Plato's Apology, for example, when Socrates refers to "o θεῖος" he is specifically referring to Apollo. It is really just a contextual thing.