Meaning
Look at the figure as a face: a whole line at the bottom and the top for the jaws, broken lines for the open mouth, and one whole line in the fourth place lodged between them like something hard. The name 噬嗑 means to bite and bring the jaws together, and the tradition reads the hexagram as biting down hard on an obstacle so that the two sides can meet. Thunder below and lightning above make one storm, noise and light at once.
The Judgment and the Image take the picture into government. Legge's English speaks of "legal constraints", and the Image says the early kings made their penalties clear and their laws known, as lightning makes things plain. This is the language of a Bronze Age court, and we give it as the text's own. In our reading the hexagram is about dealing decisively with what stands in the way, and about measure: firm enough to bite down, fair enough not to become cruelty. It says nothing about anyone's legal affairs.
The lines
The line texts are the book's most penal, with stocks and old punishments at the bottom and top, which we leave to the text. In between is a sequence about eating: biting into soft flesh, gnawing dried meat and meeting something unpleasant, gnawing meat dried on the bone and finding metal arrows in it. The fifth gnaws dried meat and finds "the yellow gold", in Legge's words, and is told to stay firm and mindful of the danger.
Its pair is 賁, hexagram 22, the same figure upside down; every line flipped gives 井, hexagram 48, the well.
In the birth cast
The time cast arrives at 噬嗑 when the year, month and day leave 3 on eight, which puts 離 fire above, and the same total with the hour added leaves 4, which puts 震 thunder below. Which line moves depends on what the whole total leaves on six, and each line turns the figure into a different hexagram:
- Line 1 (初九) moving: becomes 35 晉 Jìn, Advance
- Line 2 (六二) moving: becomes 38 睽 Kuí, Estrangement
- Line 3 (六三) moving: becomes 30 離 Lí, Brightness
- Line 4 (九四) moving: becomes 27 頤 Yí, Nourishment
- Line 5 (六五) moving: becomes 25 无妄 Wú Wàng, Without Pretence
- Line 6 (上九) moving: becomes 51 震 Zhèn, Shock
Lines 2 to 5 give the hexagram within, 39 蹇 Jiǎn, Obstruction. Everyone born in the same lunar day and double hour has the same cast, so the figure describes a moment, not a person.
Correspondences
Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.
- Trigram virtues (Shuogua, chapter 7)
- 震 moving, startling below; 離 bright, attached above, in our English sourced
- Trigram family places (Shuogua)
- eldest son below, middle daughter above sourced
- Trigram body and animal images (Shuogua)
- feet and dragon below; eyes and pheasant above sourced
- Trigram phases (a classical correspondence: the Plum Blossom text's table)
- Wood below, Fire above. The Han assignment of 梅花易數, book 1, also used by Jing Fang; not stated as such in the Zhouyi sourced
- Inverse and opposite
- Upside down: 22 賁 Bì, Adornment; every line flipped: 48 井 Jǐng, The Well sourced
- Human Design gate
- Gate 21, from 9.5° to 15.125° of the tropical zodiac on Ra Uru Hu's wheel (1987): a modern placing, not the I Ching's sourced
- Our English title
- Closing the Jaws: EsoTerrier's own, from the sense of 噬嗑 our construction
How the schools read it
- The Zhouyi, in Legge's translation (1882)
- “Shih Ho indicates successful progress (in the condition of things which it supposes). It will be advantageous to use legal constraints.”
- The Image (大象), one of the Wings, in our paraphrase
- Thunder and lightning together; the ancient kings framed their penalties with intelligence and promulgated their laws.
- The Plum Blossom method (Ming)
- A figure reached by numbers: 離 above when the year, month and day leave 3 on eight, 震 below when the same total with the hour leaves 4.
- Human Design (Ra Uru Hu, 1987)
- Takes the number for its gate 21 and puts it on the zodiac; its own reading, which we do not quote.
- EsoTerrier
- Thunder and lightning together: jaws closing on what lies between them; what blocks the way is dealt with firmly and fairly, and then the jaws can meet.
Claims about it
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Gate 21 of Human Design, at 9.5° to 15.125° of the zodiac, is where the I Ching itself places hexagram 21.
falseWhat the record shows: The wheel is Shao Yong's circle rotated by Ra Uru Hu in 1987 to 1989 so that hexagram 41 starts at 2° Aquarius. No Chinese source we found puts the hexagrams on degrees of the zodiac.
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Being born under 噬嗑 Shì Kè fixes a person's character.
unverifiedWhat the record shows: A modern reading with no source in the tradition. The Zhouyi has no birth hexagram; the cast reads a figure, not a person, and everyone born in the same lunar day and double hour shares it.
