to long for: to set the heart and appetite on something one wants
This verb names the inner reaching of a person toward something wanted. It is the pull of appetite and longing, the moment the soul fastens on a thing and wishes to have it. It almost always travels with the word for the soul or inner life, so the Hebrew pictures desire welling up from the whole person rather than a passing wish.
The word itself is neutral. It takes its color entirely from what is craved. The same longing reaches for meat and water in the wilderness, for a neighbor's house, for the beauty of a bride, for justice, and for God himself. Nothing in the word decides whether the desire is good or evil; that is settled by its object and by whether it trusts God or defies him.
The senses below sort the occurrences by what is desired rather than by any change in the word: a bodily hunger for food or drink, a wrongful craving for what is not one's own, a longing of the heart for someone or something, and, striking in its own right, God setting his heart on Zion as the place he will dwell.