Literary: Not only the dust, but all of creation. Mormon expands his analogy. He starts with the small things. He has dust moving “hither and thither.” Now he increases the size of the natural elements that obey God. Not just dust, but hills and mountains will symbolically move “hither and thither” when they “tremble and quake.” God speaks and nature listens.
“The Whole Earth Shake”
Cultural: We noted in the experience of Alma the Younger the important connection between the shaking ground and the voice of thunder. That imagery was used to signal the presence of a divine event in the conversion of Alma the Younger:
Mosiah 27:11
11 And as I said unto you, as they were going about rebelling against God, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto them; and he descended as it were in a cloud; and he spake as it were with a voice of thunder, which caused the earth to shake upon which they stood;
Mormon echoes these sentiments. He emphasizes the shaking earth and the powerful voice. In these things he is invoking cultural clues that stand as proofs of the presence of God. These are things that the people will understand as coming from God, and therefore strengthen Mormon’s declaration that God is able to control the dumb elements of nature.