Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 10:11 adds a twist no one reading the plain Hebrew would expect. From that land went forth Nimrod, and reigned in Athur, because he would not be in the counsel of a divided generation. And he left those four cities; and the Lord thereupon gave him a place; and he builded four other cities, Nineveh and Pelatiath, Kartha and Parioth.
Read carefully. Nimrod, the great rebel from the previous verse, refused to be in the counsel of the generation that was about to build the Tower of Babel. The Targum, in one of its most surprising moments, gives Nimrod a partial credit. He would not join the plot of the rebellious tower. He walked away.
And the Holy One rewarded that one good decision. The Aramaic says explicitly: the Lord thereupon gave him a place. Nimrod left his four cities behind and built four new ones — Nineveh, Pelatiath, Kartha, and Parioth — in Assyria, which the Aramaic calls Athur.
This is a remarkable piece of Jewish theology. Even a rebel, when he resists one specific evil, is rewarded for that specific refusal. The Holy One does not grade by averages. Each choice is weighed on its own.
The takeaway the Maggid leaves on this verse: if even Nimrod earned a city for walking away from one wicked plan, imagine what a single good decision does for a soul that is actually trying. Every no is heard in heaven, even the ones said by unlikely mouths.