21 Biting - The I Ching
Chris Gabriel March 28, 2026
Judgement
Biting is prosperity. Gain by correction.
Lines
1
Chained feet. One’s toes are cut off.
2
Biting flesh, cutting off the nose.
3
Biting cured meat and finding poison.
4
Biting dried meat and finding a gold arrow.
5
Biting dried meat and finding yellow gold.
6
Chained neck. One’s ear is cut off.
Qabalah
Gevurah to Tiphereth: The Path of Lamed. Adjustment. Gevurah corrects Tiphereth
In this hexagram we see the image of a mouth, with the solid lines on the top and bottom as the lips, the broken lines as the teeth, and the solid line in between as a thing being bitten. It is thunder below the sun, a solar flare or a sudden lightning strike. The ideogram provides an image of biting, with one character relating to “biting questions” or “biting words”, and the other directly to eating.
Judgment: Biting, here, is correction itself. Just as the Qabalistic path is Lamed, the shepherd’s crook, we can think of the nipping shepherd dog keeping the sheep on the proper path. In the human realm, this relates to crime and punishment: the pursuit of Justice.
1 At the lowest line, we see the feet in chains, and the toes cut off. This is a historical punishment meant to cripple a warrior. This occurs in Judges 1:6, But Adonibezek fled; and they pursued after him, and caught him, and cut off his thumbs and his great toes.
This is also the ritual punishment of Kings described by Robert Graves, “the sacred king was ritually lamed in a way that obliged him to swagger or lurch on high heels”
2 This is the idiom of “cutting your nose to spite your face”, a punishment that hurts the one inflicting it. Traditionally, the cutting of noses, known as rhinotomy, was a punishment for adulterers. The most famous example of nose cutting was inflicted on Byzantine emperor Justinian II “Rhinotmetos”, who was deposed and mutilated, but made himself a golden nose, overthrew his enemies, and became emperor again.
3 The preparation of a cured meat has been accomplished, but within it there is poison. This is punishing an old crime. In a case like this one should “let sleeping dogs lie”, not try to punish too severely, for the feelings this arises are toxic. This is revenge rather than justice.
4 Finding a golden arrow in dried meat, this is an investigation, piercing through to the heart of the matter, chewing on a case.
5 The golden truth is found in the midst of this dried meat. The case has been chewed on and the facts of the matter have made a judgment clear.
6 Mirroring the first line, here we see the head enchained, and the ears cut off. This is a criminal who is deaf to counsel and blind to justice. Punishment will have no effect on someone like this.
As this hexagram relates to the Tarot card Justice, we see that that the law is dealt by the Sword she holds. Across cultures and times, many punishments took the form of mutilations; the offending body part would be cut off, such as the hands of a thief. In the lines, we have many forms of punishments with varied results as well as forms of judging crime.
While we may not be judges or criminals, we must develop good judgment and know when to correct behaviours in ourselves and those who wrong us. We must not go too far, or be too lenient, but keep to the straight and narrow path of justice.
