"Now this is what you shall offer on the altar: two lambs a year old day by day regularly. One lamb you shall offer in the morning, and the other lamb you shall offer at twilight. And with the first lamb a tenth measure of fine flour mingled with a fourth of a hin of beaten oil, and a fourth of a hin of wine for a drink offering. The other lamb you shall offer at twilight, and shall offer with it a grain offering and its drink offering, as in the morning, for a pleasing aroma, a food offering to the LORD. It shall be a regular burnt offering throughout your generations at the entrance of the tent of meeting before the LORD, where I will meet with you, to speak to you there. There I will meet with the people of Israel, and it shall be sanctified by my glory. I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar. Aaron also and his sons I will consecrate to serve me as priests. I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them. I am the LORD their God.
Exodus 29:38-46
The consecration of the altar was to be followed immediately by the establishment of the daily sacrifice. Two lambs were to be offered every day, one in the morning, the other in the evening; partly, as Ellicott says, 'in expiation of the daily sins of the nation, but mainly as a sign that the nation daily renewed its self-dedication to Jehovah, and offered itself afresh to be a "reasonable, holy and lively sacrifice" to Him. Meat and drink offerings were to accompany the burnt sacrifice - signs of the gratitude due to God for His perpetual mercies, and acknowledgments of His protecting care and loving kindness. At the same time incense was to be burnt upon the golden altar before the veil, as a figure of the perpetual prayer that it behoved the nation to send up to the Throne of grace for a continuance of the divine favour.' But there is a further thought: someone has said that the morning and evening sacrifices were to encircle the daily life of Israel, to hedge them in unto God - and then, as a blessed consequence, the Lord's presence with His people. This is the ultimate possibility for the spiritual life - to be so encircled and encompassed by the spirit of worship that our hearts and lives are touched with the beauty of holiness. 'Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us' prayed the Psalmist (Psalm 90:17). This, we need to understand, is how it comes about.