From The Hebrew Alphabet...

The Hebrew Alphabet Letter Mem

The thirteenth letter in many of the Semitic alphabets, including Hebrew, is Mem. It is assumed that Mem came from the symbol for water in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. Mem is the representation of a bilabial nasal just like the English letter M.

In the Hebrew language, Mem has a final form which is usually used at the end of a word. The shape of the letter changes but not the pronunciation.

The letter Mem represents the number 40 in gematria. In its final form, Mem represents 600 but this is rarely used. Instead, Tav and Resh are used.

There is only one instance in the Bible where the final form of Mem can be seen in the middle of one of the words. You can see this in the book of Isaiah 9:6.

As an abbreviation the letter Mem stands for meter. It can also stand for commander in the Israeli army. Mem is also often associated with death.

In the Hebrew alphabet, there are two versions of some of the letters such as Kaf, Nun, Tzadeh, Peh and Mem. All of these letters are written differently when they come at the end of words than when they come at the beginning or in the middle of words. The version which is used at the end of words is known as the Final Mem, Final Kaf, etc. In all of the cases except those words with a Final Mem, you will see the final version having a long tail.

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