The reflex when a passage is confusing is to go find someone who already figured it out. Try one more step before that: let the rest of the Bible weigh in first.
Luke described a church in Berea that did exactly this.
Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.
Acts 17:11 (ESV)
They did not take even an apostle’s word without checking it against Scripture itself. A cross-reference does the same work a commentary claims to do, except the source is the text and not somebody’s summary of it.
Follow the reference in your Bible’s margin, or search the phrase, and read where else that idea, that word, that image shows up. Often one passage will explain another better than any note in the margin can, because both were written by the same Author with the same story in mind.