Charles Ellicott Commentary Psalms 84:2

"My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of Jehovah; My heart and my flesh cry out unto the living God." — Psalms 84:2 (ASV)

Longs. — From a root meaning to grow pale, this expresses one effect of strong emotion—one grows pale with longing. Similarly, the Latin poets used pallidus to express the effects of passionate love, and generally of any strong emotion:

“Ambitione mala aut argenti pallet amore.”
Horace, Satires 2.3.78.

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, compare Psalms 63:1.

Faints. — Or more properly, as the Septuagint has it, fails.

Courts. — This, too, like "tabernacles" mentioned above, seems to be used in a general, poetical way, so there is no need to think of the court of the priests as distinguished from that of the people.

The living God. — Compare Psalms 42:2, the only other place in the Psalms where God is so named.