Some commentators take Isaiah 2:5 as the conclusion to the first paragraph of Isaiah.  Seitz, for instance, says that v. 5’s exhortation to Israel to walk in light shows that Israel is going to have to make a pilgrimage to the mount of Yahweh’s house just like all the other nations. I see 2:1-4 as a description of restored Israel and Jerusalem, which become the mediators of Yahweh’s instruction to the nations.  Thus, verse 5 is an exhortation to the house of Jacob to return to the light so that Jerusalem will become the head mountain that Yahweh intends.

In any case, verses 5-22 (or 6-22) fall out as a modified chiasm:

A. Gold, silver idols, 2:5-8

B. Humiliation and abasement, 2:9

C. Hiding in rock, 2:10-11

D. Day of reckoning against the high things, 2:12-16

B’. Humiliation and abasement, 2:17-18

C’. Hiding in caves, 2:19

A’. Gold, silver, idols, 2:20-22

That roughly works, but the structure is more complex, more musical than that.

Verses 9-11 hang together and have a modified chiastic structure themselves:

a. Humbled, v 9a

b. Abasement, v 9b

c. Hide in rock, v 10a

d. From Yahweh’s splendor, v 10b

b’. Abasement, v 11a

a’. Humiliation, v 11b

d’. Yahweh exalted, v 11c

And verses 9-11 match the more compressed and simply structured verse 17, which moves from humiliation to abasement to Yahweh’s exaltation, the last line repeating identically the last line of verse 11.  Verse 19 picks up with the exhortation to hide in the rock from verse 10, and expands on it with its talk of men hiding in caves, rocks, holes, clefts of cliffs (vv 19-20).  It expands further by speaking of the idols being cast into holes and to moles and bats.  Verse 21 ends with a statement virtually identical to the end of verse 10: “from the terror of Yahweh and the splendor of His majesty.”

The placement of references to idols in the passages also complicates the structure.  Idols are first mentioned in verse 8 in the context of a condemnation of Judah’s multiplication of gold and silver and alliances with foreigners (v. 7); the word appears again in verse 18, here between the threat of humiliation in verse 17 and the hiding in rocks in vv 19-21; finally, they are again mentioned in verse 20, here in the middle of a section dealing with hiding in the rocks.  Similarly, silver and gold appears in verse 7 as a reference to wealth in general, but in verse 20 as a reference to the materials for idols.

When we include the other verses of this section, and consider the links between 9-11 and 17-21 and the placement of the word “idols,” the whole polyphonic arrangement might be diagrammed as follows:

A. Judah filled with influences from east, silver and gold, horses, vv 5-7

B. Idolatry, v 8

C. Humiliation and abasement, v 9

(D. Enter the rock from terror of Yahweh, v 10)

C’. Abasement and humiliation, and exaltation of Yahweh, v 11

[E. Day of Yahweh, v 12-26]

C”. Humiliation and abasement, and exaltation of Yahweh, v 17

B’. Idolatry, v 18

D’. Hiding in rocks from splendor of Yahweh’s majesty, v 19

[B”. Idolatry, v 20; silver and gold from A]

D”. Hide in rocks from splendor of Yahweh’s majesty, v 21

A’. No regard for man, v 22

When we group sections, this comes out fairly symmetrical: A, B, CDC, E, C, BDBD, A.