In Mishnah Bet, we stated that a korban chatat (sin offering) goes before the korban asham (guilt offering). We’ll list an exception to this rule in this Mishnah. The Mishnah says, “All korban chatat go before the korban asham,” because the korban asham comes in order to make a person pure and fit to eat kodashim (sacred offerings) and to enter the Beit HaMikdash. The quality of this type of korban (offering) is that it makes him fit; it enables him to enter the Beit HaMikdash and to eat korbanot (offerings). Therefore, in this unique case, the korban asham of a metzora (person with a skin condition) goes before a korban chatat. Even though a korban chatat and an olah (burnt offering) have to also be offered with the asham when a person is cleansing himself of the metzora. The blood of the korban asham is placed on the individual’s ear, thumb, and toe as the process that makes him pure and enables him to eat from the kodashim and to enter the Beit HaMikdash, which he couldn’t do when he was in a state of tum’ah (ritual impurity). So we’re learning from here that the asham comes before the chatat because it really is what gives him that ability to become pure and do all of that. Even though, of course, the korban chatat has to be brought as well. Since the blood of the asham is applied to the individual, that’s really the kicker. That’s really what brings him to a state of purity in order to enter the Beit HaMikdash and to eat from the kodashim.
All of the korban ashams that we bring in the Torah are brought from sheep when they’re in their second year, and are brought from sheep worth at least two silver shekalim (shekels). The exceptions to that rule are here again: the asham of the metzora and also the asham of a nazir (Nazirite) who becomes tameh (ritually impure). When it comes to those korbanot, these are two exceptions to the rule. They’re brought from a sheep in its first year, not like the other ones, which are brought in their second year. And they don’t have to be brought from sheep worth two silver shekalim.