Could this be a scribal error?

Nah. Not possible. There's no way the great Rabbis who sit on ArtScroll's editorial board would have allowed a mistake of any kind to slip into the text. Clearly, this is deliberate and we're meant to darshen it. So what gives?

Possibilities:

- This is an archaic word, with a forgotten meaning, like the word יֵּמִם in Gen 36:23. (I will delete any attempts to tell me that it was really Mayim that Ana found it the desert only by mistake the first two lettters got swapped)

- The charecter is one of those things we're suppose to think about, but not say, like the words "brov oz v'shalom" at the end of the nusach sefard Sim Shalom, which at first were printed in parentheses and for that very reason. Of course, nowadays people say those words, and in recent editions of the siddur the parentheses have been dropped (making the sentence into nonsense) so I suppose we'll have to figure out a way to articulate this word. Suggestions?

- It's a gloss on the word Chayim. Artscroll deliberately inserted the character for the purpose of telling us what the word really means. (Attempts to tell me that the same sort of glosses were routinely inserted into the Tanach will be deleted)

Other ideas?

[Photo via Mis-nagid who I hate]