the mountain. In such prophecies, mountains are symbolic of kingdoms. In the coming kingdom age, the Lord will be acknowledged as king over all the earth (Isaiah 9:6-7), with His throne at Jerusalem (Isaiah 2:3). See also Zechariah 14:9.

swords into plowshares. Never will there be a true and lasting world peace until the “Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6) comes to enforce it.

please themselves. That is, “join hands with,” making alliances with their pagan neighbors to the east (especially Egypt and Chaldea), with their occult religions—much like the eastern religions in the modern world—and also with the pagan Philistines to the southwest.

full of idols. The people of Israel were being led away into the pagan pantheism of the East (Assyria and Babylonia) and the occultism of the Philistines (Isaiah 2:6), both of which involved idolatry.

hide thee in the dust. The prophecies of Isaiah 2:10-22 will be fulfilled in their ultimate sense in the coming great tribulation period of the end-times. Note the context (Isaiah 2:12).

the day of the Lord. This is the first, and thus definitive use of the prophetic phrase, “the day of the Lord” in the Bible. The phrase often applies precursively to an imminent judgment of God (as in Isaiah 3:1), but primarily and ultimately to the time of the great tribulation.

shake terribly the earth. While the first nine verses of this chapter focus on the sins of Judah and Jerusalem (Isaiah 2:1), the coming judgment on the Holy Land is only a type of the judgment on the whole world in the last days, and the remainder of the chapter leaps ahead to a vision of this great end-time judgment. Compare the same scene in Revelation 6:15-17.