Also, the above poster was correct; the Nihil Obstat (the actual checking of the material for heresy) was given by the three editors of the book, whereas the Imprimatur (rubber stamp) was granted by someone else, such-and-such the Vicar General of Washington.
I recommend Calvin’s Commentaries or Matthew Henry for a thousand years before this thing, but the above recommendations of Navarre, ICSB, and Haydock are good. I personally believe the Brazos Theological Commentary is the best in print today, but it must be read with discernment as well - the authors are Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox - for although it is unstintingly Christocentric and upholding of traditional, Nicene-Constaninopolo-Chalcedonian Christian orthodoxy, it’s not always Catholic in interpretation of specific verses. From the introduction, “this series was written in the belief that dogmata and the traditional creeds help us understand Scripture, and don’t cloud or encumber our exegesis of it; all true exegesis must proceed from them. This is why these commentaries are prepared by theologians, as it has been said, ‘War is too important to leave to the generals.’”
For a conservative and inexpensive Old Testament historical exegetical commentary, the classic ten-volume work by Keil and Delitzsche is available for $70 on CBD. (It also was written by Protestants; Protestants, being sola Scripturists, have a much greater lock on the market for good commentaries; there are only two multi-volume Catholic ones, as I point out, of questionable to condemnable orthodoxy.)
Even at that, it is far more Catholic than the NJBC. For a single volume, FF Bruce’s International Bible Commentary (not to be confused with Farmer’s volume of the same name) is excellent, but written by an evangelical. I’d also stay away from/treat with great discernment anything published by Michael Glazier/Liturgical Press in the form of commentaries or histories of dogma or ecumenical councils (the one book closes with a prayer that the hierarchy will see its error and have a Vatican III where contraception and free love will be endorsed), which, sadly, publishes the two main (only) multi-volume “Catholic” commentaries available today, Berit Olam for the OT (I’ve never read any of it), and Sacra Pagina for the NT (the volume on Revelation teaches universalism, and the volume on Luke adoptionism, and the volume on John contains no sacramental theology or typology in the Bread of Life, for an idea of the orthodoxy).
I indict Berit Olam by comparison with Sacra Pagina from the same publisher, and two histories of the ecumenical councils by them as well. The one, on the first seven (by Leo Donald Davis, SJ) says that Catholics “maybe” should disregard the other 14 for ecumenical reasons; the second, on all twenty-one, is the one that ends with the paean to birth control, lamenting Humanae Vitae.
The best commentaries are all are the writings of the Church Fathers, available cheaply with the main works (and many other writings not Scriptural) in three sets, The Ante-Nicene Fathers, 10 Volumes, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, 14 Volumes, and A Select Library…Second Series, 14 Volumes (each set available for about $100), and in more complete and much more expensive form in Ancient Christian Writers and Fathers of the Church.
An excellent commentary on the Gospels in the Catena Aurea, a collection and collation of writings of the Fathers in to a coherent narrative, by St Thomas Aquinas. There is a modern Catena of sorts that has been released to mixed reviews, called Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (ACCS). I have no experience with it.
