Numbers are important to God. Throughout His book, the Bible, we see the use of numbers. The number twelve is one of those numbers which seems to crop up throughout the Bible. Ishmael, the son of Abraham by his wife's servant Haggai, had twelve sons who would become princes of a great nation (Genesis 17:20). Twelve was also the number of the sons of Jacob (Genesis 35:22-26). Later these twelve sons of Jacob became the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel. Throughout the history of Israel it was very important for the people to be able to show from which tribe they came.
When the promise land was divided it was divided into twelve parts, one part for each tribe. In fact, earlier it had been spied out by twelve spies, one man from each of the tribes. When later they entered the promise land by passing over the river Jordan, they were commanded to take out twelve stones from the dry river bed and place them for a memorial of the crossing.
In the New Testament the number twelve is also used several times. There were twelve disciples that Jesus chose to become His twelve apostles. The heavenly Zion has twelve foundations and twelve gates (Revelation 21:12-14). The tree of life will give twelve manners of fruit (Revelation 22:2). In fact, even in nature twelve is an important number for we have twelve months in a year. There are many other times the number twelve is mentioned in the Bible, but these are enough to spark your curiosity and maybe you will search them out.