In many languages one cannot say thou art my God, as God cannot be possessed like an inanimate object. Hence it is often necessary to say “you are the God I worship” or “you are the God I serve.”
In the first line, I seek thee is expressed by Good News Translation with “I long for you.” The Hebrew verb “to look for” used here is not the usual one which appears in 24.6b or the one in 9.10; 24.6a, but a verb which some take to mean “to look for at dawn”1 Traduction œcuménique de la Bible translates “Since dawn I long for you” and comments: “The verb translated long for is composed of the same consonants as the word for dawn. There is a play in the text on this resemblance. The ancient versions have At dawn and supply a verb.” (so New English Bible “I seek thee early”; the Septuagint has “I rise early for you”). (In the liturgy of the early church, this psalm was read in the morning service.)
The psalmist’s desire for God is expressed in terms of thirst (see the same expression in 42.2). It is a longing so intense that he is weak with desire: literally my flesh faints for thee (a verb found only here in the Old Testament), which Good News Translation represents by “My whole being desires you.” It should be noticed that both soul in line b and flesh in line c mean the psalmist himself, with no idea of a spiritual or psychological desire as contrasted with one that is only physical or bodily. He compares his thirst and fainting for God to that of a dry and weary land where no water is. It is to be noticed that Good News Translation moves the verb “is thirsty for” to line e, to go with the figure of a dry, arid area. Weary land is not a natural English expression; the poet is apparently transferring his own weary feelings figuratively to the land around him. One may speak of “a parched and thirsty land” (New Jerusalem Bible) or “a dry and thirsty land” (New English Bible), to which one may add “… where I feel (or, become) so weary.”
In some languages it will clearly not be possible to preserve the figures of thirsting and fainting for someone. However, the translator need not discard them without attempting to adjust them through the use of similes and other expressions; for example, “I thirst for you like I thirst for water” or “I desire you like a person thirsts for water.” My flesh faints for thee in some languages can be said, for example, “so great is my desire for you it is like feeling faint.” It is important to phrase the thirsting of the psalmist so that it can be compared to the dry land. For this reason it will sometimes be best to place the line regarding thirst just before or after the comparison of “a dry and waterless land,” as Good News Translation has done.
Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Reyburn, William D. A Handbook on the Book of Psalms. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1991. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .