The number 12
Governmental perfection, divine authority, Israel
God's own numbers: unity, completeness, divine order
Twelve is Israel's own number by the text's own accounting, twelve sons and twelve tribes, and later twelve apostles set over a renewed Israel (Genesis 35:22-26; Matthew 19:28). The New Jerusalem carries twelve gates and twelve foundations (Revelation 21:12-14), and Israel's tribal lists, though thirteen tribal lines exist once Levi and Joseph's two sons are all counted, are consistently trimmed back to twelve by omitting one name (compare Genesis 49 with Revelation 7:4-8). E. W. Bullinger reads twelve as governmental perfection, three (the divine) multiplied by four (the earthly), the number of organized rule, and points to the tribal lists' consistent trimming to twelve as evidence of a deliberate pattern. The twelve tribes and twelve apostles are the Bible's own repeated structure; Bullinger's arithmetic of "three times four equals government" is his system's explanation for why, not Scripture's own statement.
The mathematics
- The smallest abundant number: its divisors 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 6 come to 16, more than the number itself.
- A sublime number — it has exactly 6 divisors, and those divisors sum to 28, and both 6 and 28 are perfect numbers. Only two sublime numbers are known in all of mathematics; the other one has 76 digits.
- Highly composite: no number smaller than twelve has as many divisors, which is why the ancient world counted in twelves for anything that had to be divided — hours, inches, months, pence.
Every property here was checked before it was printed.
The same number, in what He made
Twelve lunar months make a year — and the Hebrew calendar, which God appointed for the feasts, adds a thirteenth month seven times in nineteen years to hold the moons and the sun together, so that Passover never drifts out of the spring (U.S. Naval Observatory, Explanatory Supplement).
Twelve pairs of cranial nerves run from the brain — the numbering established by Soemmerring in 1778 and unchanged since (Gray's Anatomy, 42nd ed.).
Sources are named in the line itself. “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.”
What they have said about this number
Governmental perfection — 3 × 4, the divine working through the created order.
“Twelve is a perfect number, signifying perfection of government, or of governmental perfection. It is found as a multiple in all that has to do with rule.”
“Perfect government — the last of the four numbers God uses to show His perfection.”
In Hebrew and Greek
Hebrew
Shnem asar (שְׁנֵים עָשָׂר) - twelve
Greek
Dodeka (δώδεκα) - twelve
First occurrence
And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years: and he died.
The pattern in Scripture
- Twelve tribes of Israel
- Twelve apostles
- Twelve gates of New Jerusalem
- Twelve foundations (Rev 21:14)
- Twelve baskets of fragments
Key verses
And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years: and he died.
Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer, and in the thirteenth year they rebelled.
And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and w...
These are the sons of Ishmael, and these are their names, by their towns, and by their castles; twel...
All these are the twelve tribes of Israel: and this is it that their father spake unto them, and ble...
12:12 verses
Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is his...
For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land o...
Let her not be as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed when he cometh out of his mother’s wo...
And ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God, ye, and your sons, and your daughters, and your mense...
The king of Eglon, one; the king of Gezer, one;
Related numbers
The works behind these readings
- E. W. Bullinger, Number in Scripture (1894)The standing catalogue of what each number means and where it returns: the spine of this whole section. Public domain; free to read in full.
- John J. Davis, Biblical Numerology (1968)The counting discipline: which numbers the text itself repeats, and which readings run past what it says.
- Ryken, Wilhoit & Longman (eds.), Dictionary of Biblical Imagery (1998)The entries on Three, Seven, Twelve and Forty: how each image works across both testaments.
- Chuck Missler, Cosmic Codes (1999)The letter-value material and the design case built on it.
- Troy Brewer, Numbers That Preach (2007)What each number preaches: the founder's named guide, quoted here within the cap on living authors, with the book named so you can go and read it whole.