Twelve is a number used in the Bible repeatedly; only slightly less than God's favorite seven. Now there are many books on numerology out there that will give you explanations for these numbers – explanations that they made up. Yes, it's obvious that the number twelve usually refers back to the twelve tribes, but what do they represent? And what about the times when it clearly has nothing to do with the twelve tribes, such as the twelve sons of Ishmael, and the twelve of Esau? Or what about things that transcend people and history, such as the twelve months, the twelve notes of the scale, and so on?

These are indubitably of the same symbol, yet different from the simple “tribes of Israel” explanation; and this tells us that the twelve tribes of Israel are themselves merely symbols of something deeper; a physical counterpart to a spiritual fact, as Paul tells us “all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come” (1 Corinthians 10:11).

All these things that happened to them have significance for us; but more even than that, for not only the temple and its fixtures, but even the people themselves were patterns, shadows of heavenly things, as Paul frequently makes spiritual symbols of Hagar and Sarah, Abraham and Isaac, Levi and Melchizedek.

Hebrews 8:5 Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount.

So what spiritual concept is illustrated by the twelve sons of Israel, twelve Apostles, twelve Dukes of Esau and twelve Princes of Ishmael?

As my articles on the number seven have shown, seven is a symbol of the top rank of the angelic rulership of the universe, and ultimately the seven spirits of God which are the ways God's nature is divided into notes like the rainbow (and from which the rainbow gets its colors, as well). If that makes no sense, read the articles, as it's a rather large concept on it's own. Suffice it to say, that seven is the major way God's nature, spirit, light, and so on divide, and so when God made seven angels He gave each of them a portion of His spirit that corresponds to (and caused) the seven church eras.

We know from Gabriel's words that the seven angels each have a number of angels under them, arranged by echelon;

Daniel 10:13 (YLT) But, the ruler of the kingdom of Persia, withstood me twenty-one days, but lo! Michael, one of the chief rulers, came in to help me, —and, I, left him there, beside the kings of Persia.

So the ruler of Persia had lesser “kings” under him, no doubt lower echelon of angels, for Christ speaks of a demon (fallen angel) going and bringing back with him “seven other spirits more wicked than himself” (Luke 11:26), and also speaks of certain demons as being more powerful than others, when after the disciples could not cast out a certain one, He said “Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting” (Matthew 17:21).

Rather than teasing you, I shall tell you up front that my thesis is that these twelve angels are the next level of angels below the top angels. So if there are are seven top angels, there are 84 second layer angels. So why do I think that?

Daniel 12:1And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people...

This says that, as Gabriel earlier said he “stood to confirm and strengthen” Darius the Mede (Daniel 11:1), so Michael stands for the children of Daniel's people, which is Israel. And as Michael is THE archangel (top angel), it stands to reason that God would put him in charge of the most important family, which to God has always been Israel.

This is supported in a prior article where I mentioned that when God dealt with Abraham, He came with “two men” (angels). But when Ishmael was helped and an angel brought him a prophecy, “an angel” came to him – not a plural. Also, when God speaks to Israel He says “I send AN Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way... Beware of HIM, and obey HIS voice, provoke HIM not; for HE will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him.” (Exodus 23:20-21)

So clearly, one angel is in charge of Israel, and dealing out judgment, and leading them and protecting them. This would be Michael, to connect this with Daniel 12:1. So this tells us that after Abraham's sons were born, one angel went with Ishmael (Gabriel) and one with Isaac (Michael). And this would explain why Jacob had twelve sons – Michael, who had been given charge of Israel was setting up a family tree where each of his angelic lieutenants could manage one son of Jacob – that's just good management technique.

TWELVE SONS

By itself that wouldn't prove much, but when you see that Ishmael (who received another top angel to become “a great nation”) ALSO had twelve sons who became “twelve princes”, that strikes a definite pattern. Jesus and the twelve apostles echoes this pattern in a similar way.

A further anomaly that must be explained is that Esau also had twelve sons, called “dukes”. For any one of these pivotal fathers of the nations of Abraham to have twelve sons is easily explained as coincidence, but to have all three of the major middle-eastern nations for the rest of the Bible ALL having twelve sons implies that there is a reason for it.

Historically, Esau has always allied himself with Ishmael, both in the Bible and out of it. For example, when Esau saw his Canaanite wives displeased his parents, he went to Ishmael and married one of his Daughters (Genesis 28:8-9). He could have gone anywhere, but he chose Ishmael.

It is believed that Esau is modern Turkey and the Arabs themselves claim Ishmael as their ancestor, and historically they have always allied with one another against the European sons of Isaac (Isaac-Sons, Isaaxons, Saxons). So even outside the Bible, we still find them allied against the sons with the inheritance.

Both Esau and Ishmael had their birthrights as the eldest stolen out from underneath them by Isaac and Jacob, so they had much to commiserate and common enemies to bind them. They had very similar blessings recorded in the Bible, as well, implying they were to follow similar destinies.

Genesis 27:39-40 And Isaac his father answered and said unto him [Esau], Behold, thy dwelling shall be the fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above; And by thy sword shalt thou live, and shalt serve thy brother; and it shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck.

Genesis 16:12 And he [Ishmael] will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.

Genesis 17:20 And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; TWELVE princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation.

Note that Esau was to have “the dwelling of the fatness of the earth”, and Ishmael was “to be fruitful, and multiplied exceedingly”; Esau was to “live by the sword” – that is, a life of fighting – while Ishmael's [sword?] hand “will be against every man, and every man's hand against him”. Esau was to “serve his brother”, and Ishmael was to “dwell in the presence of his brothers”. Granting that they aren't identical, both received very similar blessings. And it must also be noted that Ishmael's twelve sons were specifically prophesied – ruling out coincidence.

My admittedly speculative conclusion from this is that both Ishmael and Esau were governed by the same angel; this is supported by the fact that they have followed similar paths in history, as if led by the same angelic ruler, Gabriel. And that conclusion would mean that Gabriel's twelve lieutenants each had one son of Esau and one son of Ishmael to administer, while Jacob's sons were administered by the twelve angels under Michael. Which would thoroughly explain why there were twelve sons of Jacob, Esau, and Ishmael.

TWELVE LEGIONS OF DAVID

But let's move on for now to other uses of twelve, starting with the courses that David set up. Most only think of the courses of the priests, of which there were 24 – but a lesser known set of courses is the rulers of Israel, of which there were... twelve!

1 Chronicles 27:1 Now the children of Israel after their number, to wit, the chief fathers and captains of thousands and hundreds, and their officers that served the king in any matter of the COURSES, which came in and went out month by month throughout all the months of the year, of every course were twenty and four thousand.

To make it clearer, I'll quote the first part of that verse from the BBE version “the heads of families, and the captains of thousands and of hundreds, and the men in authority who were servants of the king” – all these came and served one month a year in the standing militia.

This is important because it shows how David divided up the civil rulership of Israel; David being a man after God's own heart, setting up God's nation, we can safely assume this was a method of division of which God approved or perhaps even inspired, and hence it can be used to help us explain the significance of twelve.

There being twelve courses for the military, each month there was a separate commander of all the armed forces, along with a separate militia and captains and all officers throughout Israel. The other eleven months they were free to live their own lives.

Verses 2-3 Over the first division for the first month was Ishbaal, the son of Zabdiel; and in his division were twenty-four thousand. He was of the sons of Perez, and the chief of all the captains of the army for the first month.

“Twelve legions, corresponding to the number of tribes, were enlisted in the king’s service. Each legion comprised a body of twenty-four thousand men, whose term of service was a month in rotation,” (JFB Commentary on 1 Chronicles 27:1)

So these courses consisted of twelve legions of 24,000 men each. Now if David is a type of Christ, and David's armies therefore a type of Christ's angelic armies, is it not logical to infer that David's armies were divided as Christ's armies are divided?

If David's armies work in “courses”, twelve courses at that, then might not the Lord's host work in courses? The song of Deborah says they do!

Judges 5:20 They fought from heaven; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera.

In this context, it is certain that the “stars” which “fought from heaven” “against Sisera” are angels. No other interpretation can be defended. But this verse says they fought “in their courses”! And what courses would they be fighting in, if not the twelve courses of the military rulers? Divided according to the twelve angels under Michael who had been assigned to govern Israel? Each legion of 24,000 with their own “chief father”?

It must be admitted that “courses” here is a different Hebrew word than that used in Chronicles, hence the case is not an airtight one, but on the other hand it must also be admitted that it makes a compelling argument; especially when you add in this verse:

Matthew 26:53 Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?

...Why did He say “twelve legions”? Why not seven, or ten, or fifty? All flippancy aside, He could have chosen any number He wanted to express His power, why did He specifically select TWELVE legions? The only plausible answer is it was, to Him, a well-known and major division among angelic powers!

For example, we seldom casually refer to something happening eleven days, 32 days, eight days or 14 months ago; except in rare cases where accuracy matters, we refer to something happening two weeks, or a month, or a week or a year ago. Because these are the common divisions of days in our minds! When referring to single items, we speak of dozens, half dozens, or a dozen dozens, which is a gross. Or to the metrically inclined, tens and hundreds and thousands.

So for Jesus to casually retort “If I wanted them, God would give me over twelve legions of angels”, it must have been a division He was familiar with! One so commonplace it sprang instantly to mind! And if what I've said so far is even partially correct, from Isaac and Ishmael to David's courses, then twelve legions of angels would have been the entire complement of one top angel – in this case, Michael!

Legion was a Latin word which originally meant “body of soldiers”, the way the Romans used to divide large groups of soldiers into manageable sections. At the time of Christ it was about 6826 men, but we have no way of knowing if Jesus meant “twelve ROMAN legions of angels” (81,912), or twelve legions of David of 24,000 each (288,000).

The latter seems more reasonable, since angels are almost certainly not divided according to Roman rules. On the other hand, there is good reason to believe they are set up in the same divisions David used for his armies. And while those are not called legions in the Old Testament (since the word legion, and even Rome itself, hadn't been invented then) the word legion fits them just as well.

TRUE LIES

But we have another interesting foray to make on this subject before we wrap it up. I don't usually use pagan mythology to prove my point, but here I think it will really add something. To be fair, I already made a strong case for it with the Bible and will wrap this up with another Biblical case, but the mythological angle is a very interesting side point.

I think of myths as true lies. That is, Satan is in charge of all other religions, one way or another. This includes Greeks with their myths, Indians with theirs, Catholics with theirs, and so on. Now all of these myths are lies – none happened as reported. But still many of them had a major basis in fact, but those facts have been twisted to protect the guilty.

What we're really looking at in the stories of Gilgamesh, or the Titans, or the Valkyrie is Satan's version of past events, or his plans for future events. This obviously cannot be trusted – but when we know the truth about those events from other sources, seeing how Satan skews them can be educational for several reasons.

Of course, it's bad enough that the myths were lies to begin with, but after thousands of years of repeating, they've shifted even more; some beyond recognition, but some not so much. Plus, Satan often casts himself and his followers at various times on both sides of the struggle, but still, there is much that can be learned.

For instance, in most cultures there is a story of how the present race of gods came to power by deposing a previous race of gods. This is found particularly in Babylon, Greece, Canaan, and Scandinavia – which are four of the cultures most responsible for founding ancient myths.

What makes this interesting for our present topic is that in most of these stories the number of young, noble upstarts deposing a reactionary, fascist government is... twelve.

The story of the Titans is an excellent example. There were twelve original Titans in power led by Cronus, and they were opposed by twelve young Olympian gods, headed by Zeus. To make an extremely long story short, Zeus won and deposed the Titans, who then led an assault back into heaven against Zeus...

“When they tried to mount heaven, Zeus with the help of Athena, Apollo, and Artemis, cast them headlong into Tartarus.” (according to the ancient writer Hyginus)

So the Olympian gods won and cast the Titans down to Tartarus. Interestingly, this is also recorded in the Bible.

2 Peter 2:4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;

You probably don't see the connection at first, but in the original languages, “hell” is not translated from the Greek “hades” as it is most other places, but here from the word “Tartarus”, a word used nowhere else in the Bible! So Peter says that the angels which sinned were cast down to Tartarus! Just as were the Titans – thus connecting the Angels which sinned with the Titans of myth.

But a similar story took place in Scandinavia in a similar battle between contemporary gods, this time between the Aesir and the Vanir. Again, there are twelve Aesir (Asas), but this time a thirteenth is added, a ruler of the twelve! The ancient writer Gylfaginning lists twelve male Aesir, not including Odin their chief. The myths are not clear as to how many Vanir there were.

In Babylon, in the very ancient tales recorded in the Enuma Elish tablets dated around 1700BC, we find Marduk battling with Tiamat; Tiamat tried to kill him using an army of twelve monsters which she had created. Tiamat lost. There are many many other tales, but these are a few that show the most relevant fact I'm trying to show – all of these show a prominent usage of twelve in the battles between the gods.

Frequently they reference twelve gods working under a chief god, who himself is always a descendant of another chief God, usually the architect of the universe. As the twelve Titans served Cronus, son of Uranus, who was eternal and had descended from no one.

Just as there is a eternal God “without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life” (Hebrews 7:3), who has seven angels, “sons of God” working under Him, who each have twelve angels working under them.

I scarcely need to point out the Zodiac, which is clearly a concept much loved by Satan, which portrays twelve “houses” each dominated a certain part of the year by the “sun”. Which ties in beautifully with Hinduism, where the sun god Surya has 12 names! As any angelic self-styled Sun-god would have twelve names/houses/angels under him!

Now all this is evidence from a very wide range of cultures, over a very wide span of time, that shows a prominence of the number twelve in terms of the chief rulers of a civilization that broke off from another group of reactionary rulers; rebels against heaven. One couldn't make a case like this for 14, or 8, or 23 chief rulers – twelve just seems to be all through the myths.

Now we know Satan lies, and that these myths are lies, but the fact that the lies all agree with each other – and most importantly, with the Bible – gives us good reason to believe that angels are divided into groups of twelve at some level. And that it is the level immediately below the top angels makes the most sense in light of all the evidence we have – which admittedly, is several facts short of a “thus saith the Lord”. Nevertheless, it fits the pattern. But wait, there's more!

TWELVE NOTES

The even tempered scale of music divides into twelve notes – the seven white keys and five black ones on the piano. This is not an arbitrary division – this is how it makes the most mathematical sense without having to have hundreds of keys for a single octave. It isn't perfect, but it is very close. The errors are compromised or “tempered” to give us the modern western scale.

But the musical scale consists of only seven notes – an octave. So then why do the twelve notes exist? Largely to explore the marvelous flexibility of Music. The exact same song can be played in the key of C, where only the white keys are played, and be cheery; and the same order of notes, played at the same speed, but played in the key of D flat, and be completely depressing.

The melody – the relative frequency of the notes – will be the same. But because the scale includes different keys with different harmonics, the music will be completely different. Without having twelve keys to choose from – even though we only use seven at a time – a good portion of music would have been impossible to create.

I said in a previous article that God has seven top angels because His spirit divides in seven major ways. With this information it seems probable that, in addition to the seven major divisions of the octave, the spirit also divides into twelve minor divisions within that octave. If the seven angels each received a segment of the spirit of God corresponding to the seven notes of the octave, then the next echelon of angels would each receive a segment of the spirit of God corresponding to the twelve notes of the octave.

TREE OF LIFE

Fundamentally the pattern we're exploring here is how there is one God, seven angels, each of which has twelve angels. But when we look at that pattern from the ground up, we see twelve angels and one leader; twelve fruits from one vine, in a symbolic sense. And while this is perhaps not the primary meaning of this verse, it does show that pattern of one and twelve very nicely...

Revelation 22:2 ... on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: …

This ties the fruits of the tree of life to the months; David tied months to his armies; many scriptures tie armies to angels. Many more scriptures tie angels to stars. Many myths tie stars to the zodiac and back to months again – showing that all these uses of twelve are directly related, and are far more important that merely the sons of Jacob.

THE CALENDAR

But there is another way in which twelve is used which I haven't directly addressed yet, although that tree of life scripture hinted at it; months. I won't dwell long on this, as it's simply too obvious, but there is one point which should be pointed out. Twelve months make a year. Ideally. And how does God group years?

Leviticus 25:8 (Rotherham) And thou shalt count to thee seven weeks of years, seven years, seven times, —so shall the days of the seven weeks of years become to thee forty-nine years.

So twelve groups of days (months) becomes one year (again the twelve-to-one ratio). Then seven years becomes a week of years in the Bible. This ties another strong bond between seven and twelve. And as you just saw, seven and twelve have a strong mathematical relationship in music – just as they have a strong relationship in mythology and in the Bible. At some point, coincidence is ruled out. And finally...

Revelation 12:1 And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:

I won't attempt to interpret this scripture here, for our point it is enough that once again the Bible divides angels into a group of twelve, specifically twelve protecting the woman – the church, which anciently was the nation of Israel.

Israel, which had Michael as its Chief Prince, and whose twelve tribes each had one angel to guard, guide, and punish them – just as Revelation places twelve stars in her crown. And which has echoed down through time to inspire the birth of the twelve tribes, the twelve bulls which supported the brasen sea, the calling of the twelve apostles, twelve months, twelve notes, twelve fruits, and all the other uses of twelve. If true, this would explain every last one of those instances.

The first echelon of angels numbers seven; this explains every usage of seven in the universe. The second consists of twelve to each of those seven. These are the spiritual shadows of these physical numbers. The fact that they are the two top strata in the angelic government explains why they are the two most common numbers in the Bible – and perhaps in the universe. Well, except one. The number one, that is.

I said “finally” before, but there is another example that just has to be laid out clearly before I'm done. Mammals all have the identical pattern of bones. They are shaped differently, and may be difference sizes, sometimes so small as to be nonexistent – but they are all built on the same pattern. And some of these mammals are meant as sacrifices, and thus as symbols representing Jesus, the saints, and the government of God.

Given that fact, look at the skeleton of any mammal and think about the pattern. Every animal has 1 head. They have 7 vertebrae in their neck. Then they have 12 vertebrae in their back! Followed by 5 lumbar vertebrae.

If the head of all things is Christ, and he has seven spirits ruling under him; and they each have twelve spirits under them… then literally, when you “ask the beasts”, they really will teach you about the things of God (Job 12:7-9).

And if that really IS the pattern – and how can it not be? – then the fact that there are 5 lower vertebrae tells us that the next echelon will involve the number 5. And when we put this together with other scriptures, we find that 50 is a very important number to God. But that's another article...