Every single day, the Korban Tamid (daily offering) was brought. The first lamb was brought in the morning, and the second was brought in the afternoon. The morning Korban Tamid was the first offering brought in the morning, and the afternoon Korban Tamid was the last Korban (offering) brought that day on different types of holy days, including Shabbat, Rosh Chodesh (new month), and other holidays. There were extra Korbanot, the Musaf, offerings that were brought between these two Korbanot. We’ll talk about these Korbanot and what happens if they are not brought in the proper order.
The Mishnah says that giving precedence to the morning Tamid is not considered essential for the Musaf offerings. You’re supposed to bring the Korban Tamid first. If you brought the Korban Musaf (additional offering) beforehand, the Musaf offerings are still valid, even though they were brought out of order. Giving precedence to the Musaf offerings before the Tamid offerings also does not change the acceptability of the Korban Tamid. That would be if the Musaf offerings were brought after the afternoon Tamid. The Tamid is still valid, even if it was brought earlier.
The proper order of the Musaf offerings is not considered essential for their validity. If there is a certain order in which the Korbanot are brought, and multiple Korban Musafin are brought on one day, they are valid even if they are brought out of order. This does not change the acceptability of the Korban. If the Kohanim (priests) did not bring the Korban Tamid in the morning, they still bring it in the afternoon, because each Korban Tamid is its own entity and is valid without the other.
The Gemara comments on the last part of the Mishnah: When is it true that we continue to bring the afternoon Korban, even though we did not bring the morning one? It is when the Kohanim who offered it were forced to skip the morning Tamid, or made a mistake and skipped it by mistake. In that type of case, they bring the afternoon Korban Tamid. But if they did it on purpose, if they did not offer the Korban Tamid in the morning, we penalize these Kohanim and say that they are not allowed to offer the Korban Tamid in the afternoon. We bring a different set of Kohanim to offer the afternoon Korban Tamid.
The lottery took place every single day to determine who would be in charge of that day’s Korbanot, including the Korban Tamid. Whoever won that lottery was given both the morning and the afternoon Korban Tamid. But if they messed up in the morning, if they deliberately skipped it, then we take that privilege away from them, and they do not offer the afternoon Korban Tamid.
Now we’ll mention the Ketoret, the incense offering that’s brought also every morning and every afternoon. They would have a Maneh (measure) of Ketoret that was brought. It was divided up: one half was brought in the morning, and the other half was brought in the afternoon. If the Kohanim did not bring the Ketoret in the morning, they bring it in the afternoon. If the morning Ketoret was not brought, then the entire measure, the entire Maneh, is brought in the afternoon. Whatever was missed in the morning is added to the afternoon Ketoret and brought all at once.
We don’t have to mention the clause that the Kohanim who messed up in the morning don’t bring it in the afternoon, because it was not something repeated by the same Kohanim. Whoever brought it in the morning would not bring it in the afternoon. The Mishnayot elsewhere discuss in depth how the privilege of Ketoret was given to someone. It was sometimes given only once in a person’s entire lifetime, so it would not be the same Kohanim who brought it in the morning and in the afternoon. So if someone missed it in the morning, they were not going to bring it in the afternoon anyway.
There’s a Machloket (dispute) here between Tanna Kama (first tanna) and Reb Shimon. Tanna Kama would say that you only bring the Ketoret for that time. So if they missed it in the morning, they don’t add it to the pile and bring it in the afternoon. They would only bring what they normally bring during the afternoon.
Now we’ll talk about the difference between the Korban Tamid and the Ketoret when it comes to inaugurating an object in the Beit HaMikdash. When an item was brought into the Beit HaMikdash, whether it was something small or something large, it had to be brought forward and sanctified in a way that fit with the normal service it was created for. For example, let’s say we’re talking about the Mizbeach (altar), where the Korban Tamid is offered every morning and every afternoon. We have to perform the service of the Korban Tamid on that Mizbeach in order to sanctify it, inaugurate it, and make it special for the Beit HaMikdash.
What we mentioned earlier—that the Korban Tamid is brought in the afternoon even if it was not brought that morning—applies only to a Mizbeach that was already in use. But if the Mizbeach was about to be inaugurated, if it was new, then the afternoon Korban Tamid is not brought on that Mizbeach unless the Tamid was brought that morning.
With the Ketoret, things are different. We very much say that the afternoon Ketoret service has nothing to do with the other service. Therefore, the afternoon Ketoret is burned on a new Mizbeach HaZahav (golden altar), even if no Ketoret was ever offered that morning. The Mishnah will explain why. We inaugurate—we dedicate—the golden Mizbeach only with the Ketoret offered in the afternoon. Even though the Mishnah doesn’t say that, the Chachamim (Sages) and the Gemara explain that we alter this a little bit: we’re talking about the afternoon service, not the morning service.
If the Mizbeach HaZahav is new and hasn’t been used yet, what we do is skip the morning Ketoret; it isn’t brought that day. We offer the afternoon one, and that afternoon one inaugurates the Mizbeach HaZahav. This is what we do. We skip the morning Ketoret and offer only the afternoon one. There is actually a prohibition against offering the morning Ketoret, because then we can’t inaugurate the Mizbeach in the afternoon. So we wait, and we only do Ketoret in the afternoon that day. This halacha (Jewish law)—that the golden Mizbeach is used in the afternoon when we bring a new one—is learned through a Pasuk (verse) in the Torah.
But the difference with the Mizbeach HaOlah, which is the outer Mizbeach, is that we inaugurate it with the morning Tamid, not the afternoon Tamid. So if the Mizbeach HaOlah was not yet dedicated and the morning Tamid that day was skipped, we don’t bring the afternoon Tamid on that Mizbeach. It is not proper to inaugurate it with the afternoon Korban, so we would actually skip it that afternoon and wait until the next morning to bring the Korban.
The reason for this is that we’re sort of stuck in a catch-22. The Mizbeach isn’t yet sanctified because it hasn’t been inaugurated, so we can’t bring the afternoon Korban. But we can only sanctify it by bringing the morning Korban Tamid. So we wait until morning and bring the Korban Tamid as we normally do. Then the Mizbeach is sanctified, and we follow up by bringing Korbanot on it going forward.
Other objects of the Beit HaMikdash are also inaugurated. We inaugurate the Shulchan (table) only by putting the Lechem HaPanim (showbread) there on Shabbat. Every Shabbat we place bread on the Shulchan in the Hechal (Sanctuary). The loaves of bread stay there until the next Shabbat, when they are given out to the Kohanim and replaced. When Lechem HaPanim is placed there on Shabbat, the Shulchan becomes inaugurated.
We also inaugurate the Menorah (lampstand) by lighting seven lamps in the afternoon, every single afternoon. The Menorah was lit in the Beit HaMikdash; the first afternoon that it is lit, that is how it becomes inaugurated.