Psalms 84:2

(2) 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.