Kommentar zu Bereschit 16:8

אי מזה באת WHENCE CAMEST THOU? — He knew it, but he asked this in order to give her a starting-point so that he might converse with her. The expression אי מזה is to be explained thus: Where is (אי) that place of which thou canst say, “From this (מזה) have I come”.

?אי מזה באת ואנה תלכי, the angel wanted Hagar to realise what kind of an unprofitable exchange she was about to make if she left the house of a man such as Avram and traded that holy environment in the land of Canaan, preferring the spiritually contaminated regions outside the Holy Land and the evil people residing there.

ויאמר, the vowel patach (instead of segol) under the letter מ is used as if there were a colon after the word. This is not unusual, seeing that words with the tone-sign revia occasionally signal that the word is meant to end with a colon or similar, meant to be followed by an explanation. Seeing that here the subject matter itself introduces an interruption, seeing that what follows is not connected to the word ויאמר, we need to understand the word as referring to what preceded it. This is so whenever the word ויאמר appears with the vowel patach.

Where is the place about which you can say ... Otherwise it should say מאיזה, and the מ at the beginning of the word would indicate a question, as in (Shoftim 17:9): מאין תבוא, “From where do you come?”

— אי מזה: wo ist der Ort, von dem —; אָנה, so viel wie אן, לאָן rad. אנה, die Richtung nach einem Orte hin, davon אניה das Schiff und אנֵה etwas irgend wohin gelangen lassen. מפני גברתי ich kann oder ich will nicht mehr Sklavin sein.

הגר שפחת שרי, “Hagar, Sarai’s servant maid!” The angel reminds her that her status as Sarai’s servant maid had not changed. She acknowledged this when she replied that she was fleeing from her mistress Sarai.

אנכי בורחת, "I am not going to a place I have chosen myself; I am simply escaping intolerable conditions."

הגר, the angel called her both by her name and by her station in life, i.e. the slave of Sarai. Seeing that she was supposed to be attending to Sarai's needs, he wanted to know what she was doing in this location. He continued with "where do you come from and where do you think you are headed?"

בורחת, Hagar confirmed that she had no idea, seeing that she was merely fleeing in order to escape the torment Sarai had subjected her to. The vowel patach in the word בורחת, at the end of a verse is most unusual. [the vowel kametz would have been expected. Ed.]