Numberschapter 5
31 verses · Moses, by tradition · 15th to 13th century BC · The Law
Key verse
“Command the Israelites to send away from the camp anyone with a skin disease, anyone who has a bodily discharge, and anyone who is defiled by a dead body.
It stands in Put the unclean outside the camp, verses 1 to 4.
The chapter
Chapter summary
Uncleanness put out of the camp. Lepers, any issue, the defiled by the dead: ‘put out … that they defile not their camps, in the midst whereof I dwell’. Trespass confessed and restored with the fifth added; if no kinsman to pay, it goes to the priest. Then the law of jealousy. A husband suspicious of his wife brings her to the priest with a jealousy offering; the water of bitterness; her oath; the priest writes the curses, blots them into the water; if guilty, her thigh rots; if innocent, she bears seed. The ordeal is severe by modern ears; its ancient setting is the protection of covenant honour and the public discovery of truth.
Context
Law · Moses · Numbers overview
The world behind this chapter
Numbers 5The history
The three rulings are given to Moses, each opened by its own word from the LORD at verses 1, 5 and 11. The camp in view is the one just numbered at 603,550 fighting men and arranged in four divisions around one tent.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
The chapter belongs to the second year after the Exodus, about 1444 BC on the date the book gives at Numbers 1:1. The place is Sinai, and the first ruling turns on the geography of the camp itself, since being sent outside it meant being sent beyond those four divisions. The occasion is the follow-through on the ordering of chapters 1 to 4, and verse 3 gives the reason in one clause, that the LORD dwells in the middle of the camp.
A first hearer knew what removal cost, and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown record that people in this condition were generally made to wear a distinctive badge. He knew that ordeals were a standard legal tool for an accusation that could not be proved. The laws of Hammurabi sent an accused woman into the river and took drowning as the verdict of guilt.
In Israel's version the woman swallowed water from the laver, dust from the tabernacle floor and the ink of the written curse, and any one of the three is harmless. He also knew the cost on the other side, since Deuteronomy 22:13 to 19 fined a husband a hundred shekels of silver for slandering his wife and barred him from ever divorcing her.
What it meant to them
For the woman, this was the one place in the legal world she lived in where an accusation nobody could prove was answered by God rather than by her husband's temper or a river's current. It was also the one place where a clean verdict returned her to her household with the promise that she would bear children.
The man who had defrauded a neighbour had to say aloud what he had done and pay back the principal with a fifth added, to the man he had robbed.
For the camp the three rulings said one thing three ways, that what is wrong gets dealt with in the open and before God, because God is living in the middle of it.
Sources cited
- James B. Pritchard, editor, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament
- Gordon J. Wenham, Numbers (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries)
- Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible , 1871, on Numbers 5:2 and 5:29
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible , 1832, on Numbers 5:2, 5:4, 5:17 and 5:29
- John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament , 1765, on Numbers 5:12 and 5:15
Where the chapter sits
Numbers 5 falls in First census and camp order (chapters 1–10). Twelve tribes numbered; the camp arranged around the tabernacle; the order of march; the cloud lifts.
After it: From Sinai to Kadesh, chapters 11–14.
The whole shape of Numbers→The structure of this chapter
People1
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. Put the unclean outside the camp
1. (vv. 1-3)
Numbers 5:1
“And the Lord spake unto Moses,.... Jarchi says, what follows was said on the day the tabernacle was erected, but it seems rather to have been delivered after the several camps were formed, and the people numbered, when those that were unclean were ordered to be cast out of them: saying; as follows.”
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Numbers 5:1
“The general purpose of the directions given in this and the next chapter is to attest and to vindicate, by modes in harmony with the spirit of the theocratical law, the sanctity of the people of God. Thus, the congregation of Israel was made to typify the Church of God, within which, in its perfection, nothing that offends can be allowed to remain (compare Mat 8:22; Rev 21:27).”
Numbers 5:2
“Put out of the camp every leper - According to the preceding plan, it is sufficiently evident that each camp had a space behind it, and on one side, whither the infected might be removed, and where probably convenient places were erected for the accommodation of the infected; for we cannot suppose that they were driven out into the naked wilderness. But the expulsion mentioned here was founded, 1. On a purely physical reason, viz., the diseases were contagious, and therefore there was a necessity of putting those afflicted by them apart, that the infection might not be communicated.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 5:2
“They are generally obliged to wear a distinctive badge that people may know them at first sight and be warned to avoid them. Other means were adopted among the ancient Jews by putting their hand on their mouth and crying, "Unclean, unclean" [Le 13:45]. But their general treatment, as to exclusion from society, was the same as now described.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Numbers 5:3
“Both male and female shall ye put out,....”
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 5:3
“That they defile not the camp - By which God would intimate the danger of being made guilty by other mens sins, and the duty of avoiding intimate converse with wicked men.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
The Lord spake unto Moses opens fifty-one passages in Numbers, more than in any other book. Chapters 1 to 4 set the camp in rings around the tent, and the first ruling after them names who may not stand inside those rings, the leper of Leviticus 13:46, the man with an issue of Leviticus 15, and anyone defiled by a dead body. The ground given in verse 3 is the dwelling itself, in the midst whereof I dwell, so the rule follows from where God has pitched rather than from the diseases. Deuteronomy 23:14 gives the same reason for the same rule.
2. (v. 4)
Numbers 5:4
“And the children of Israel did so, and put them without the camp,.... Aben Ezra observes, that this was done immediately before they journeyed, and that those that were defiled journeyed between the standard of Ephraim and the standard of Dan; but this, he says, was by way of conjecture, since it is not expressed: as the Lord spake unto Moses, so did the children of Israel; they were obedient in this particular.”
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 5:4
“And the children of Israel - put them out - This is the earliest account we have of such separations; and probably this ordinance gave the first idea of a hospital, where all those who are afflicted with contagious disorders are put into particular wards, under medical treatment. Though no mention be made of the situation, circumstances, etc., of those expelled persons, we may certainly infer that they were treated with that humanity which their distressed state required.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Numbers 5:4-5
Israel obeys, and the verse says so twice over, which matches the closing line of the census at Numbers 4:49. Compliance is recorded steadily from chapter 1 through chapter 10, and the record breaks at 11:1, where the people complain and fire falls among them. For the man defiled by a dead body this chapter gives removal and no cleansing, and the water of separation that answers that case waits until Numbers 19.
B. Confess it, restore it, add a fifth
1. (v. 5)
Numbers 5:5
“The law of restitution: a passage supplementary to Lev 5:5, etc., Lev 6:5, etc. Num 5:7 Recompense his trespass - i. e. make restitution to the person whom he has injured. Num 5:8 Whereby an atonement shall be made for him - literally, “which shall clear him of guilt as to it,” i. e. as to the trespass. Num 5:10 And every man’s hallowed things shall be his - i. e. the priest’s. The heave offerings Num 5:9 and dedicatory offerings (e. g. first-fruits) were to be the perquisite of the officiating priests.”
2. (vv. 6-7)
Numbers 5:6
“Any sin that men commit - Hebrew. any sins of men, that is, sins against men, as deceits or wrongs, whereby other men are injured, of which he manifestly speaks. Against the Lord - Which words may be added, to shew that such injuries done to men are also sins against God, who hath commanded justice to men, as well as religion to himself.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Numbers 5:7
“Shall confess their sin - Without confession or acknowledgment of sin, there was no hope of mercy held out. He shall recompense - For without restitution, in every possible case, God will not for give the iniquity of a man’s sin. How can any person in a case of defraud, with his neighbor’s property in his possession, expect to receive mercy from the hand of a just and holy God? See this subject considered in the notes on Gen 42:38 (note).”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Leviticus 6:1-5 had already set restitution for defrauding a neighbour at the principal with a fifth part added. What Numbers adds is confession said aloud, then they shall confess their sin, which Adam Clarke reads as the condition of any hope of mercy. The other addition is the wording, since a fraud worked on a neighbour is called a trespass against the Lord, and the money still goes to the man who was robbed rather than to the sanctuary.
3. (v. 8)
Numbers 5:8
“If the man have no kinsman - The Jews think that this law respects the stranger and the sojourner only, because every Israelite is in a state of affinity to all the rest; but there might be a stranger in the camp who has no relative in any of the tribes of Israel.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Kinsman occurs here for the first time in Scripture, and the word behind it is the redeemer's word. It stands behind Boaz at Ruth 3:12 and behind the avenger of blood at Numbers 35:12, so one term covers the man who buys back a relative's land and the man who pursues a relative's killer. The case in view is a wronged man with nobody left to be paid, and the debt is transferred rather than cancelled, unto the Lord, even to the priest. Adam Clarke passes on the Jewish reading that this covers a stranger in the camp, since an Israelite has kin somewhere among the tribes.
4. (vv. 9-10)
Numbers 5:9
“And every offering of all the holy things of the children of Israel,.... Of the holy sacrifices brought by them to be offered up; that part of them which is elevated, heaved, or waved, as the heave shoulder and wave breast: which they bring unto the priest, shall be his; what they bring to him to offer for them shall be his who performs the service, even that part of them which is his due.”
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 5:9
“The other priests should not come in sharers with that priest who then officiated, and to whom the hallowed thing, whatever it was, was given. Let him that was most ready and diligent in attending fare the better for it: if he do the work, let him have the pay, and much good may it do him.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Numbers 5:10
“Every man's hallowed things - Understand this not of the sacrifices, because these were not the priest's peculiar, but part of them was offered to God, and the remainder was eaten by the offerer as well as by the priest; but of such other things as were devoted to God, and could not be offered in sacrifice; as suppose a man consecrated an house to the Lord, this was to be the priest's.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Numbers 5:9-11
The trespass paid to a priest sits beside the standing rule that what a man brings to a priest belongs to that priest. Albert Barnes reads verse 10 of the officiating priest, so the man doing the service that day receives what is given that day, and Matthew Henry reads the same line as pay following work. The priests held no land, which Numbers 18:20 states outright, so what came in at the tent was their living. Verse 11 opens a fresh word from the Lord, and the law that follows is the one ordeal in the Torah.
C. Bitter water for a jealous husband
1. (v. 11)
Numbers 5:11
“The trial of jealousy. Since the crime of adultery is especially defiling and destructive of the very foundations of social order, the whole subject is dealt with at a length proportionate to its importance. The process prescribed has lately been strikingly illustrated from an Egyptian “romance,” which refers to the time of Rameses the Great, and may therefore well serve to illustrate the manners and customs of the Mosaic times. This mode of trial, like several other ordinances, was adopted by Moses from existing and probably very ancient and widely spread institutions.”
2. (vv. 12-14)
Numbers 5:12
“If a man's wife - This law was given partly to deter wives from adulterous practices, and partly to secure wives against the rage of their hard-hearted husbands, who otherwise might upon mere suspicions destroy them, or at least put them away.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Numbers 5:13
“And a man lie with her carnally,....”
Numbers 5:14
“The spirit of jealousy - רוח קנאה ruach kinah, either a supernatural diabolic influence, exciting him to jealousy, or the passion or affection of jealousy, for so the words may be understood.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The law is defined by what evidence cannot reach. Verse 13 stacks the conditions, hidden from her husband, kept close, no witness against her, and she was not taken in the act, which is exactly the case Leviticus 20:10 and Deuteronomy 22:22 cannot touch, since those laws require proof and carry death. Verse 14 then states the case twice, once where the wife is defiled and once where she is not, so the law is written for a husband whose suspicion may be wrong. Adam Clarke takes the spirit of jealousy as either an influence working on the man or the passion itself, and leaves the choice open.
3. (v. 15)
Numbers 5:15
“But on the occasion referred to, both these ingredients were to be excluded, partly because it was a solemn appeal to God in distressing circumstances, and partly because it was a sin offering on the part of the wife, who came before God in the character of a real or suspected offender.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 5:15
“If she did, she was not put to death, (which must have been, if it had been proved against her) but only was divorced and lost her dowry. Her offering - By way of solemn appeal to God, whom hereby she desired to judge between her and her husband, and by way of atonement to appease God, who had for her sins stirred up her husband against her.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
The meal offering of Leviticus 2:1-2 is fine flour with oil poured on it and frankincense laid on top. This one drops both, which it shares with the poor man's sin offering of Leviticus 5:11, the same tenth part of an ephah brought without oil and without frankincense. What belongs to this offering alone is the grain, since barley meal is brought nowhere else in the law. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the omission as fitting a sin offering brought by a woman under accusation, and the memorial that ordinarily rises as a sweet savour here brings iniquity to remembrance.
4. (vv. 16-18)
Numbers 5:16
“And the priest shall bring her near,.... Or "offer it", as the Vulgate Latin version, that is, the offering of jealousy: and set her before the Lord; or "it", the offering; for which the Tigurine version is more express,"let the priest offer that sacrifice, and set that before the Lord,''for the setting of the woman before the Lord is spoken of in Num 5:18.”
Numbers 5:17
“Holy water - Water out of the laver, called holy because consecrated to sacred uses. This is the most ancient case of the trial by ordeal. See at Num 5:31 (note). In an earthen vessel - Supposed by the Jews to be such as had never been previously used. Dust that is in the floor - Probably intended to point out the baseness of the crime of which she was accused.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 5:17
“And the priest shall take holy water,.... Out of the laver, as the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan, and so Jarchi and Aben Ezra: in an earthen vessel; which held half a log, and that was but a quarter of a pint, or three egg shells; for no more was assigned, to a suspected woman, according to the Misnah (r).”
Numbers 5:18
“Uncover the woman’s head - To take off a woman’s veil, and expose her to the sight of men, would be considered a very great degradation in the East. To this St. Paul appears to allude, 1Co 11:5, 1Co 11:6,1Co 11:10.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Three things are put in place before a word is spoken. Holy water goes into an earthen vessel, a phrase that occurs nowhere else in Scripture, and dust off the tabernacle floor is put into it. The text gives no reason for the dust; Adam Clarke suggests the baseness of the crime, and John Gill reports the rabbinic measure of half a log and the ruling that the vessel had never been used before. Her head is uncovered in front of the sanctuary, which Clarke reads as a public degradation and connects with Paul's argument at 1 Corinthians 11:5-6.
5. (vv. 19-20)
Numbers 5:19
“And the priest shall charge her by an oath,.... Or give her her oath: and say unto the woman, if no man hath lain with thee: besides her husband: and thou hast not gone aside to uncleanness with another instead of thy husband; which is but another phrase expressive of the same thing, the sin of adultery: be thou free from this bitter water that causeth the curse; if this is the case, it shall produce no bitter effects, or bring any curse upon thee.”
Numbers 5:20
“But if thou hast gone aside to another instead of thy husband,.... Gone aside from the paths of modesty and chastity, and betook herself to another man's bed instead of her husband's: and if thou be defiled, by committing adultery: and some man hath lain with thee beside thy husband; these phrases are all synonymous, and a heap of words are made use of to express the sin, and that there might be no evasion of it, and that it might be clear what was intended, this being said on oath.”
The oath is put to her in two halves and the acquittal comes first, be thou free from this bitter water that causeth the curse. Only after that does verse 20 state the guilty case, and it states it in a heap of synonyms, gone aside, defiled, and some man have lain with thee. John Gill reads the piling of terms as closing every evasion, since these are the words she is sworn to. The priest speaks and the woman listens, so nothing in the rite turns on her own words until verse 22.
6. (vv. 21-22)
Numbers 5:21
“The Lord make thee a curse and an oath - Let thy name and punishment be remembered and mentioned as an example and terror to all others. Like that mentioned Jer 29:22, Jer 29:23: “The Lord make thee like Zedekiah, and like Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire, because they have committed villany in Israel, and have committed adultery with their neighbors’ wives.” - Ainsworth.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 5:21
“To rot - Hebrew. to fall, that is, to die or waste away. To swell - Suddenly and violently till it burst, which the Jews note was frequent in this case. And it was a clear evidence of the truth of their religion.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Numbers 5:22
“Thy belly to swell, and thy thigh to rot - What is meant by these expressions cannot be easily ascertained. לנפל ירך lanpel yarech signifies literally thy thigh to fall. As the thigh, feet, etc., were used among the Hebrews delicately to express the parts which nature conceals, (see Gen 46:26), the expression here is probably to be understood in this sense; and the falling down of the thigh here must mean something similar to the prolapsus uteri, or falling down of the womb, which might be a natural effect of the preternatural distension of the abdomen.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Amen enters Scripture here, in the mouth of a woman swearing to a curse laid on her own body, and she doubles it. The next place a whole nation says it is Deuteronomy 27:15-26, where Israel answers Amen to twelve curses called out from Ebal. The curse itself is given in the terms of verse 21, the thigh to rot and the belly to swell, and Adam Clarke draws on Jeremiah 29:22 to show what being made a curse and an oath among a people amounts to, a name other men use when they swear.
7. (vv. 23-24)
Numbers 5:23
“And the priest shall write these curses in a book,.... The above curses imprecated on herself by an oath; the words and the letters of them were written at length, in a scroll of parchment; and, as some say also, her name, but not her double amen to them (y): and he shall blot them out with the bitter water: wash them out with it, and into it, or scrape them off of the parchment into it. (y) Misnah, ut supra, (Sotah, c. 2) sect. 3.”
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 5:23
“The priest shall write these curses - and he shall blot them out - It appears that the curses which were written down with a kind of ink prepared for the purpose, as some of the rabbins think, without any calx of iron or other material that could make a permanent dye, were washed off the parchment into the water which the woman was obliged to drink, so that she drank the very words of the execration.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Numbers 5:24
“The bitter water that causeth the curse - Though the rabbins think that the priest put some bitter substance in the water, yet as nothing of the kind is intimated by Moses, we may consider the word as used here metaphorically for affliction, death, etc. These waters were afflicting and deadly to her who drank them, being guilty. In this sense afflictions are said to be bitter, Isa 38:17; so also is death, 1Sa 15:32: Ecc 7:26.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The curses are written out and then washed off the page into the water she drinks, so the words go into her in their own ink. Adam Clarke reports the rabbinic view that the ink was mixed without any iron in it, which would let the writing lift clean off the parchment. Blot enters Scripture at Exodus 32:32-33, where Moses asks to be blotted out of God's book and God answers that he blots out the man who sinned, and here what gets blotted out is the curse. Matthew Henry holds that the water carried the curse only where there was guilt, since verse 24 has it becoming bitter after it enters her.
8. (vv. 25-26)
Numbers 5:25
“Then the priest shall take the jealousy offering out of the woman's hand,....”
Numbers 5:26
“And the priest shall take an handful of the offering, even the memorial thereof,....”
The drinking is commanded at verse 24 and commanded again at verse 26, after the offering is waved and a handful of it burned. John Gill and Keil and Delitzsch read verse 24 as stating the outcome in advance, with verses 25 and 26 giving the order the priest actually follows, and the sequence of the rite has been read both ways. The handful burned for a memorial is the same action as Leviticus 2:2, performed here on an offering with nothing sweet in it.
9. (vv. 27-28)
Numbers 5:27
“Bishop Patrick says, from some of the Jewish writers, that the effect of these waters appeared immediately, she grew pale, and her eyes ready to start out of her head. Dr. Lightfoot says that sometimes it appeared not for two or three years, but she bore no children, was sickly, languished, and rotted at last; it is probable that some indications appeared immediately.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Numbers 5:28
“And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean,....”
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 5:28
“From the whole we may learn, (1.) That secret sins are known to God, and sometimes are strangely brought to light in this life; however, there is a day coming when God will, by Jesus Christ, as here by the priest, judge the secrets of men according to the gospel, Rom. ii.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The vessel holds water, dust and dissolved ink, and nothing in it accounts for either outcome. The text names no mechanism and simply states the two results, one for the defiled woman and one for the clean, which leaves the verdict with God rather than with the priest or with a court. Adam Clarke sets aside the rabbinic idea that a bitter substance was added and takes bitter in the sense of affliction, while Matthew Henry passes on Bishop Patrick for an effect seen at once and John Lightfoot for one that took years. Verse 28 gives the clean woman more than an acquittal, she shall be free, and shall conceive seed.
10. (vv. 29-31)
Numbers 5:29
“This is the law of jealousies - And this is the most singular law in the whole Pentateuch: a law that seems to have been copied by almost all the nations of the earth, whether civilized or barbarian, as we find that similar modes of trial for suspected offenses were used when complete evidence was wanting to convict; and where it was expected that the object of their worship would interfere for the sake of justice, in order that the guilty should be brought to punishment, and the innocent be cleared.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 5:29
“This is the law of jealousies--Adultery discovered and proved was punished with death. But strongly suspected cases would occur, and this law made provision for the conviction of the guilty person.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Numbers 5:30
“Or when the spirit of jealousy cometh upon him, and he be jealous over his wife,.... See Gill on Num 5:14, and shall set the woman before the Lord; has carried the matter so far as to bring his wife to the priest or civil magistrate, and declare his suspicion, and the ground of it: and the priest shall execute upon her all this law; he shall proceed according to the law, and perform every rite and ceremony required; nor could any stop be put to it, unless the woman owned she was defiled.”
Numbers 5:31
“Whereas now, whatsoever the consequence is, the husband shall not be censured for bringing such curses upon her, or for defaming her, if she appear to be innocent. Her iniquity - That is, the punishment of her iniquity, whether she was false to her husband, or by any light carriage gave him occasion to suspect her.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Adam Clarke calls this the most singular law in the Pentateuch and notes that trials of the same shape were used among many nations, where an accused person was put to fire, poison or water and the god was expected to decide. What Israel's version leaves out is the hazard, since the woman swallows water, dust and ink, and no trial of this kind is prescribed anywhere else in the law. Verse 31 clears the husband of guilt for bringing the case, while Deuteronomy 22:13-19 fines a husband a hundred shekels and bars him from ever divorcing the wife he slandered, so the two laws stand side by side in the canon and neither cancels the other.
This page carries no textual note on Numbers 5. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
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Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.