Significance of 12?

The Bible is obviously chock full of numbers, and there is always greater significance to the numbers than one (including myself) would typically pick up on. In this verse, it indicates that Ishmael had 12 sons (and 12 is a pretty important number, see http://tinyurl.com/bnt9n5). But Ishmael's brother, Isaac, only had 2 sons as far as I can tell (Jacob and Esau). Jacob, of course, had 12 sons (from which sprung forth the 12 tribes of Israel). So I'm just wondering what the significance is with Ishmael having 12, but it wasn't Ishmael's brother who had 12 sons, it was his nephew (Jacob). Any thoughts?

Created over 3 years ago