Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 10:26 hides one of the loveliest details in the whole genealogy. Joktan begat Elmodad, who measured (or lined) the earth with lines; and Shaleph, who led forth the waters of rivers, and Chatsarmaveth, and Jarach.
Two of these names are expanded in the Aramaic into portraits of what the sons actually did. Elmodad — his name sounds like the Hebrew mad, to measure — is remembered as the first surveyor, the one who lined the earth into parcels so that people could tell where their land ended and their neighbor's began. Shaleph — his name sounds like shalaf, to draw out — is remembered as the first engineer of irrigation, drawing rivers through channels to water fields that were dry.
This is gentle. After the Flood, after Noah's vineyard, after Nimrod's cities, Torah pauses to say: ordinary people were also at work. One drew property lines. One built canals. These are not glamorous jobs. No army marches under Elmodad's banner. No empire is named after Shaleph. And yet, without the one who measures the field and the one who waters it, no nation eats.
The Maggid loves this verse because it blesses the quiet work. Not every descendant of Noah was going to build a tower. Some were going to dig a ditch. Both are part of the renewed world.
The takeaway: in heaven's accounting, a careful measurement is as holy as a loud victory. Most of the world runs on the hands of people whose names almost no one remembers.