In the third chapter of the Book of Jonah, Jonah finally reaches Nineveh, and starts preaching repentance and reformation to the people there. And... they listen! Even the King of Assyria listens!

The inner meaning of the story is pretty close to the surface here, and there's important symbolism. Swedenborg summarizes the chapter's meaning in this one sentence:

"The nations, hearing from the Word of God about their sins, and that they would perish, were converted after repenting, and were heard by the Lord, and saved." (The Inner Meaning of the Prophets and Psalms 213)

Rev. George McCurdy, in his exegesis of this chapter, offers this summary:

The great city of Nineveh has many spiritual representations. The world saw Nineveh as a mighty nation, but in the eyes of the Lord, it represented the shallowness and weakness (death) of false doctrines, contrived beliefs confirmed by the proprium (self love), the fallacies of the senses, and the unenlightened understanding that spawns spiritual ignorance.

The Lord’s mercy and love for all prompted Him not only to send His message to Nineveh, but to ensure that it would be preserved for eternity. Jonah’s call to "arise and go" preach to Nineveh is a call for spiritual renewal. It is a call for repentance. The fasting, sackcloth, and ashes symbolize a call to be aware that "where there is no truth, there is no church."

Where the Word is closed, and not loved, there is a loss of conjunction with the Divine resources. The fasting of man and beast symbolizes a need for the spiritual and natural appetites to come to the Lord for that "bread which comes down from heaven." The Ninevites giving up their natural food and drink represents their turning away from "as-of-self" concepts and reminds all who read and hear the Word of the Lord to rely on heavenly manna.

"Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in abundance…" (Isaiah 55:2)

The king sitting in ashes and mourning represents a sorrowful attitude toward "the remains of the fire of self-love." Repentance involves self-examination, making oneself guilty for the sins and evils committed, asking the Lord for His help, and desiring to attain a new life.

As we mull over this concept, think about the Lord’s preaching on earth. As He went about His mission, He often used these words: "You have heard it said of old… but I say unto you…" Putting aside human traditions and taking on the Lord’s teachings is an ongoing effort. Jonah was told to preach the words of the Lord. He was not to make things up from his memory. He was to be a true and faithful prophet of the Lord’s ways.

Here's a link to an interesting (audio) sermon on this chapter, by Rev. Todd Beiswenger.

Rev. Martin Pennington suggests two explanatory passages from Swedenborg's theological writings:

"Forty days means a period of temptation combats or severe change." (Arcana Coelestia 730)

"A fast represents those who are in a state of unhappiness when good is no longer joined to the truths." (Arcana Coelestia 9182[10])

Other references of interest listed by Rev. McCurdy include:

"As ‘forty’ signified what is full or complete… forty signifies what is complete in respect to instruction and influx… for this reason it was said by Jonah to the Ninevites that ‘the city would be overthrown after forty days" (Jonah 3:4) (Arcana Coelestia 9437[2])

"By being clothed in sackcloth is signified mourning on account of the vastated truth in the church; for garments signify truths; and therefore, to be clothed in sackcloth, which is not a garment, signifies mourning that there is no truth; and where there is no truth, there is no church." Jonah 3:5-6 is cited. (Apocalypse Revealed 492)

"…the rite of putting sackcloth on the loins to testify…mourning may be seen from the historic and prophetic parts of the Word, as in… Jonah 3:5-8… for a sign representative of mourning over the evil on account of which Nineveh was to perish; thus over destroyed good." (Arcana Coelestia 4779[2])

"From the signification of garments it is also manifest why they rent their garments, when any one spoke against the Divine truth of the Word… and why, on account of transgressions against Divine truths, they put off their garments, and put on sackcloth." Jonah 3:5, 6, and 8 are cited. (Apocalypse Revealed 166)

"That ‘ashes’ denote falsity, may be confirmed from passages where another word for ‘ashes (cinis)’ is used, for these ashes have a like origin…" Jonah 3:6 is cited. (Arcana Coelestia 7520)

"…by ‘ashes’ in the opposite sense, namely, what is condemned that remains after the burning from the fire of self love. This is signified by ‘the ashes’ which they carried on the head, and in which they rolled themselves when bewailing their sins." Jonah 3:6 is cited. (Arcana Coelestia 9723)

"In the spiritual sense by kings those who are in truths are signified, by the great ones those who are in goods, by the rich those that are in the knowledge of good, by the mighty they that are in erudition, by servants they that are in such things from others, and thus from memory, and by freemen they that are in such things from themselves…" Jonah 3:7 is cited. (Apocalypse Revealed 337)

"The interior good and also the interior evil…are signified by ‘man,’ are those which are of the intention or end, for the intention or end is the inmost of man; but the exterior good and also the exterior evil which are signified by ‘beast,’ are those which are of the thought, and of the consequent action when nothing stands in the way…By ‘beast,’…in respect to the external or natural man, a man is nothing else than a beast, for he takes delight in the like cupidities and pleasures, as also in the like appetites and sense…Therefore… from a holy rite it was commanded by the king of Nineveh, that both man and beast were to fast, and were to be covered with sackcloth (Jonah 3:7, 8)." (Arcana Coelestia 7523)

"… in the spiritual world a man’s affections appear at a distance like beasts… and beasts, viewed in themselves, are nothing but forms of natural affections… By man and beasts together is signified man as to spiritual and natural affection, in the following passages… Jonah 3:7, 8…" (Apocalypse Revealed 567)

"Here ‘webs’ and ‘garments’ are predicated of things of the understanding, that is, of the thought; ‘iniquity’ and ‘violence,’ of things of the will, that is, of works. In Jonah 3:8… the ‘evil way’ is predicated of falsities, which are of the understanding; and ‘violence,’ which are of the will." (Arcana Coelestia 623[2])

"…the ‘wrath of anger’ is attributed to Jehovah, and consequently ‘repentance.’" (Arcana Coelestia 588[2])

"…the Word is such in the sense of the letter, it may be evident that it cannot be understood without doctrine. But let examples illustrate this. It is said that Jehovah repenteth (Jonah 3:9; 4:2), and it is also said that Jehovah repenteth not (Num. 23:19…): without doctrine these statements do not agree." (Teachings Regarding the Sacred Scripture 51)

"In these passages (Jonah 3:9,10) Jehovah is said to have ‘repented,’ when yet it cannot be that He repents, because He knows all things before He does them; from which it is evident that by ‘repenting’ is signified mercy." (Arcana Coelestia 10441[2-4])

Finally, here's a link to Rev. McCurdy's study guide for the Book of Jonah, which is available for free as a .pdf, for your use.

537. Behold, a great, fiery red dragon. This symbolizes people in the Protestant Reformed Church who make God three entities and the Lord two, and who divorce charity from faith, making faith saving and not at the same time charity.

These are the people meant by the dragon here and in the following verses. For they are antagonistic to the two essential elements of the New Church, namely, that God is one in essence and person, in whom is the Trinity, and that that God is the Lord; moreover, that charity and faith are one, like an essence and its form, and that only those people possess charity and faith who live in accordance with the Ten Commandments, which teach that evils are not to be done. To the extent anyone does not do evils then, by refraining from them as sins against God, to the same extent he does goods which are goods of charity and believes truths that are truths of faith.

[2] Everyone who considers it can see that people who make God three entities and the Lord two, and who divorce charity from faith, making faith saving and not at the same time charity, are antagonistic to these two essential elements of the New Church.

When we say that they make God three entities and the Lord two, we mean people who think of three persons as three gods and distinguish the Lord's humanity from His Divinity. Who, moreover, entertains any other thought, or can entertain any other thought, when he prays in accordance with the formal expression of his faith "that God the Father may send the Holy Spirit for His Son's sake"? Does he not pray to God the Father as one God, for the sake of the Son as another, concerning the Holy Spirit as a third?

It is apparent from this that even though someone intellectually may make the three persons one God, still he distinguishes between them, which is to say that he pictures them as three Gods when he prays these words. The same formal expression of his faith also makes the Lord two entities, since one thinks then only of the Lord's humanity and not at the same time of His Divinity; for the phrase, "for His Son's sake," means for the sake of His humanity that suffered the cross.

From this it can now be seen just who those are who are meant by the dragon which attempted to devour the woman's child, and which, because of the child, afterward pursued the woman into the wilderness.

[3] The dragon is called great because, with the exception of some people here and there who do not believe in the same way regarding the Trinity and faith, all the Protestant Reformed churches distinguish God into three persons and make faith alone saving. People who distinguish God into three persons and cling to this statement in the Athanasian Creed, "There is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit," and also to this, "The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God" - these people, I say, cannot make one God out of three. They can indeed say they are one God, but they cannot think it.

By the same token people who think of the Lord's Divinity from eternity as a second person in the Godhead, and of His humanity in time as being like the humanity of any other person, cannot help but make the Lord two entities, despite the statement in the Athanasian Creed that His Divinity and humanity are one person, united like soul and body.

[4] The dragon is called fiery red because a fiery red color symbolizes falsity arising from the evils attendant on lusts, which is a falsity of hell.

Now because these two fundamental doctrinal tenets in the Protestant Reformed churches are false, and falsities destroy the church, inasmuch as they take away its truths and goods, therefore they were represented by the dragon. That is because a dragon in the Word symbolizes the destruction of the church, as can be seen from the following passages:

I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, a habitation of dragons; and I will turn the cities of Judah into a wasteland... (Jeremiah 9:11)

Behold..., there has come... a great tumult out of the north country, to turn the cities of Judah into a wasteland, a habitation of dragons. (Jeremiah 10:22)

Hazor shall be a habitation of dragons, a desolation forever. (Jeremiah 49:33)

...that it may be a habitation of dragons, a courtyard for the offspring of owls. (Isaiah 34:13)

In the habitation of dragons, her couch... (Isaiah 35:7)

I will go stripped and naked; I will make a wailing like dragons, and a mourning like the offspring of owls. (Micah 1:8)

...I cried out for help. I am a brother of dragons, and a companion of the offspring of the screech owl. (Job 30:28-29)

The iyyim ¹ will reply in her palaces, and dragons in her... temples. (Isaiah 13:22)

Let Babylon be a heap, a habitation of dragons, as a hissing and an astonishment... (Jeremiah 51:37)

You have crushed us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death. (Psalms 44:18-19)

I have made (Esau's) mountains a wasteland, and his inheritance one for dragons of the wilderness. (Malachi 1:3)

And so on elsewhere, as in Isaiah 43:20, Jeremiah 14:6, Psalms 91:13-14, Deuteronomy 32:33.

[5] The dragon here means people who are caught up in faith alone and who reject works of the Law as not saving, and I have had this attested several times by personal experience in the spiritual world. I have seen many thousands of such people assembled into companies, and at a distance then they looked like a dragon with a long tail, which seemed to be covered with thorn-like spikes, symbolizing falsities.

I also once saw a still bigger dragon, which arched its back and extended its tail up to the sky in an effort to draw down the stars from there.

I thus had it visually shown to me that these and no others are the people meant by the dragon.

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