John Calvin Commentary Genesis 47:21

"And as for the people, he removed them to the cities from one end of the border of Egypt even to the other end thereof." — Genesis 47:21 (ASV)

And as for the people, he removed them to cities. This removal was indeed severe. However, if we reflect on how much better it was to depart to another place, so that they could be free cultivators of the land, rather than to be attached to the soil and employed as slaves in servile work, no one will deny that this was a tolerable, and even a humane, exercise of authority.

If each person had cultivated his field as he had been accustomed to do, the exaction of tribute would have seemed grievous. Joseph, therefore, contrived a middle course that might mitigate the new and unaccustomed burden, by assigning new lands to each, with a tribute attached to them. The passage may, however, be differently interpreted: namely, that Joseph caused all the farmers to go to the cities to receive provisions and to settle their public accounts. If this interpretation is approved, the fact that Egypt was divided into provinces, afterwards called nomes, may probably have originated from this. This moving from place to place would, however, have been injurious to both the king and the people at large, because they would not have been able to apply their skill and experience to new situations. Yet, since the matter is not of great importance and the meaning of the word is ambiguous, I leave the question undecided.