רבינו בחיי — שמן זית זך כתית למאור

Q — The midrash reads כתית as a hint to the two Batei Mikdash — but why only two when there should be three?

A — Rabbeinu Bachya solves the apparent omission by reading the pasuk's two key words against each other. כתית — "crushed, pounded" — is the language of destruction; therefore it can only encode the two Batei Mikdash whose duration was time-bounded and which ended in churban. The third Beis HaMikdash cannot be hinted at by כתית because it will never be crushed. So where is it? In the very next word: למאור — "קומי אורי כי בא אורך". And the pasuk's closing phrase, להעלות נר תמיד — תמיד, perpetual, never extinguished — is the signature of a Mikdash without a counted span. The third Mikdash is missing from the kasis-count because it is signed in a different vocabulary: not pounding, but light; not duration, but eternity.