창세기 47:21의 주석

ואת העם העביר AND AS FOR THE PEOPLE HE CAUSED THEM TO PASS — Joseph caused them to pass from one city to another city that they might be reminded that they now had no claim to the land. He settled the people of one city in another. There was no need for Scripture to state this except for the purpose of telling you something to Joseph’s credit — that he intended thereby to remove a reproach from his brothers because, since the Egyptians were themselves strangers in the various cities where they then dwelt, they could not call them (Joseph’s brethren) strangers (Chullin 60b).

העביר אותו לערים, a stratagem also employed by Sancheriv when he conquered the northern Kingdom of Israel and forcibly exchanged the populations of that kingdom with people from the north. (compare Kings II 18,32). The purpose behind this was to prevent uprisings by populations who had no roots in their countries and therefore had no good reason to start a rebellion.

העביר אותו לערים, he transferred them so that they should encourage him to keep the grain safe.

ואת העם העביר אותו לערים. He did not want the people to get too attached to the land they would be working on, not as the attachment they had felt for their land in the past which they had owned outright. He did give them the land as something they could transfer by inheritance to their children, but he made sure that they would remain aware that they had received it by the largesse of Pharaoh who had been the true owner and who could therefore claim a tax of 20% of their harvests.

Yoseif transferred them from city to city... [Rashi says this] so we will not think that it was Pharaoh who is mentioned just before, [who did this. That is not so,] because Yoseif was the buyer, the one who transferred them, and the giver of seed.

לערים nicht: in Städte, sondern städteweis, immer eine ganze Stadtbevölkerung zusammen nach einer anderen Stadt. Der ganze Boden war Staatseigentum geworden, und um dieses neuerworbene Recht vollständig konkret werden zu lassen, sollten alle bisherigen Eigentümer ihr bisheriges Eigentum verlassen, somit eine vollständige Auswanderung eintreten. Allein Josefs Weisheit milderte die Maßregel dadurch, dass immer eine Gesamtbevölkerung zusammenblieb und sich nur auf einem neuen Boden wieder zusammenfand. Somit blieben die alten sozialen und kommunalen Beziehungen dieselben und es trat nicht eine ganze Umwälzung aller bestehenden Verhältnisse ein. Die Weisen deuten auf die Folgen hin, die diese Versetzung der Gesamtbevölkerung für die neuen Ankömmlinge der Jakobsfamilie haben musste, auf welche fortan kein Ägypter mit Hohn herabblicken konnte. Es befand sich auch kein Ägypter mehr auf eigenem Hofe. Es war übrigens diese ganze Maßregel nicht eine von Josef erfundene. Das Volk selbst hatte sie Raw Hirsch on Genesis 47: 19, und zwar zugleich die Leibeigenschaft, in Vorschlag gebracht. Josef verschmähte diese und adoptierte nur den Staatsankauf der Ländereien, aus welchem zuletzt nur eine Grundsteuer resultierte.

ואת העם העביר אותו, “as far as the people were concerned, Joseph transferred them wholesale (to new locations).” Joseph transferred the people to new locations so that they would no longer be attached to their soil, since he had bought it. This would prevent them from returning to their land after some time and claim that this is what they had inherited from their fathers. Once they were settled in the new location on soil which had never been theirs, they could not make such a claim since everyone lived on land that had once belonged to somebody else.

'מקצה גבול מצרים וגו means thus did he to all the cities of the realm of Egypt FROM ONE EXTREMITY OF THE BOUNDARIES OF EGYPT EVEN TO THE OTHER EXTREMITY THEREOF).

He did this to all the cities that were in the kingdom of Egypt... Rashi says this so we will not think that Yoseif only switched [people] from one end to another end, but he did not switch [people living] in the middle of the country. Therefore he says, “All the cities...”