Something lodged between the jaws has to be bitten before they can close: a hexagram of removing obstacles, and of judging with clear sight and measured force.
Zhen ☳, thunder, whose quality is movement (動), lies below Li ☲, fire, whose quality is brightness and clinging (麗). Zhu Xi sees the shape of an open mouth with one hard line stuck inside it; once that is bitten through, things go through. Because movement here joins clarity, he connects the hexagram with judging cases, where force must be matched by clear sight and balance.
Judgment (卦辭)
The text attached to the whole hexagram, read when no line is changing.
噬嗑，亨，利用獄。
Shi He: success. It is favorable to use legal judgment.
Zhu Xi splits the name into “bite” and “bring together”: when something lodges between the teeth, one bites down on it and the jaws close. The figure looks like an open mouth, solid lines at top and bottom and hollow within, with a yang line in the fourth place stuck in the gap. Once the bite closes on it, things go through. Thunder below moves and lightning above gives light, and in the line change he traces from Hexagram 42, Yi, a soft line rises to the center of the upper trigram. Judging cases needs authority, clear sight and balance, so he applies the judgment to those who have such qualities.
Image (大象)
The Image commentary (象傳) reads the whole hexagram from its two trigrams.
雷電，噬嗑。先王以明罰敕法。
Lightning and thunder: Shi He. The former kings made penalties clear and set the laws in order.
The received text says “thunder and lightning”; Zhu Xi's only note is that it should read “lightning and thunder,” which matches his account of the figure, with thunder below and lightning above. Light above and force below echo what his judgment note says judging needs, clarity and authority, and so the former kings made penalties clear and the laws orderly.
Lines (爻辭)
From the bottom line to the top. In the line names, nine (九) marks a yang line and six (六) a yin line.
Line 1, yang (初九)changing line in the shared reading
屨校滅趾，无咎。
The feet in wooden stocks, the toes lost to sight. No blame.
Zhu Xi sorts the lines into two groups: the first and top lines, which hold no rank, receive punishment, while the middle four apply it. At the beginning and the bottom the offense is slight and the fault small, so the penalty is light, stocks on the feet. Stopping wrongdoing at its first step is why there is no blame; he speaks of a small hurt and no lasting fault.
Line 2, yin (六二)changing line in the shared reading
噬膚滅鼻，无咎。
Biting into soft flesh, the nose sinks out of sight. No blame.
Soft, tender meat of the kind set out in sacrificial cauldrons is the easiest of all to bite. The second line (六二) is central and correct, so the case it handles gives way just as easily. Yet a soft line rests here on the strong first line, and even an easy bite goes in so deep that the nose is buried. Zhu Xi reads it as some hurt, but no blame in the end.
Line 3, yin (六三)changing line in the shared reading
噬腊肉，遇毒，小吝，无咎。
Biting dried meat, it meets poison. A little humiliation; no blame.
Dried meat, Zhu Xi explains, is a whole animal cured with its bones, tough and hard to chew. The third line (六三) is soft and neither central nor correct, like someone trying to impose order on people who will not accept it: the jaws strain and meet poison. That brings some embarrassment. But the hour is one for biting and closing, so the effort itself is right, and the text finds no blame.
Line 4, yang (九四)changing line in the shared reading
噬乾胏，得金矢，利艱貞，吉。
Biting dried meat on the bone, it obtains metal and arrows. It is favorable to be correct and firm through hardship. Good fortune.
Meat dried on the bone is tougher still, and the fourth line (九四), a strong line in a soft place, faces the hardest case so far. Zhu Xi links “metal and arrows” to the Zhou li, which records that parties to a case delivered a measure of metal and a bundle of arrows before they were heard. The line has found the right way to hear cases, yet the good outcome still depends on staying correct through difficulty.
Line 5, yin (六五)changing line in the shared reading
噬乾肉，得黃金，貞厲，无咎。
Biting dried meat, it obtains yellow metal. Keep correct and firm, and treat it as perilous; then no blame.
Plain dried meat sits between the soft flesh and the bony cuts, harder than the one and easier than the others. Zhu Xi glosses yellow as the color of the center, and metal again as the deposit paid before a hearing. Soft, compliant and central in the ruler's place, the fifth line (六五) judges in a way people accept. Even so, the text asks for correctness and a sense of danger before it grants no blame.
Top line, yang (上九)changing line in the shared reading
何校滅耳，凶。
Carrying a wooden collar that hides the ears. Misfortune.
Carried on the neck now, the wooden collar hides the ears; Zhu Xi glosses 何 as “to bear.” Like the first line, the top line (上九) belongs among those who receive punishment, but this yang line has gone past every limit at the top of the figure. Where the first line showed a small fault caught early, this one shows wrongdoing grown large, and the text calls it misfortune.
If you drew this hexagram
Which text to read depends on how many lines are changing. With none, read the judgment; with one, read that line; with more, follow Zhu Xi's rules in the Yixue qimeng.
Text: Zhu Xi, Yuanben Zhouyi benyi (原本周易本義), Siku Quanshu Wenyuange copy, as transcribed by the Kanseki Repository (KR1a0031), corrected and punctuated by K-magpie. Translation and explanation: written by AI (Claude) from Zhu Xi's commentary and checked against the text and commentary. Sources and the list of corrections are on the Today's Hexagram page.