Longeth. — From root meaning to grow pale, expressing one effect of strong emotion — grows pale with longing. So the Latin poets used pallidus to express the effects of passionate love, and generally of any strong emotion:
“Ambitione mala aut argenti pallet amore.”
HOR., Sat. ii. 3, 78.
Or we may perhaps compare Shakespeare’s
“Sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.”
For a similar fervid expression of desire for communion with God, comp. Psalms 63:1.
Fainteth. — Or more properly, as LXX., faileth.
Courts. — This, too, seems, like tabernacles above, to be used in a general poetical way, so that there is no need to think of the court of the priests as distinguished from that of the people.
The living God. — Comp. Psalms 42:2, the only other place in the Psalms where God is so named.