THE ORACLE OF EAST
Ancient wisdom for modern decisions
Home · The 64 Hexagrams · Hexagram 40
Hexagram 40 · Xiè

Deliverance

解 · xiè
The knot loosens; forgive and move on swiftly.
Zhèn · Thunder
above
Kǎn · Water
below

Core Meaning

The Judgment: Deliverance: the southwest rewards. If nothing remains to be set right, return to the ordinary brings good fortune. If something remains, do it swiftly — speed brings good fortune.
The Image: Thunder and rain break the tension. So the wise person pardons mistakes and deals gently with those who have failed.

Thunder and rain breaking a long-gathered tension: Xiè is deliverance — the knot loosening, the storm that clears the air, release after obstruction.

Its counsel concerns the hour after release: return swiftly to ordinary life once the remaining tasks are done, and above all forgive — pardon mistakes, deal gently with failures. Carrying the crisis posture into the cleared weather, like riding a carriage while hauling a pack, only invites new robbers.

Deliverance in Your Question

Love & Relationships

Xiè brings the relieving turn: the fight that finally clears, the pressure that lifts, the misunderstanding dissolved. Its wisdom is in the aftermath — forgive genuinely, without keeping the grievance in storage, and let normal life resume without endless reprocessing. Deliver yourself first, the fifth line notes, and the change in you releases the other.

Career & Money

Professionally, Xiè is the crisis resolved: the deal unstuck, the reorganization completed, the storm passed. Its checklist: finish the few remaining tasks swiftly, then deliberately stand down from emergency mode; pardon the mistakes made under pressure rather than prosecuting them; and shed the hangers-on and habits — the big toe — that attached themselves during the confusion.

Personal Growth

Inwardly, Xiè is the practice of release: letting the resolved thing actually be resolved. Old knots — resentments, self-blame, vigilance kept long after its danger passed — dissolve the way thunder-rain does, in one honest reckoning followed by ordinary life. Forgiveness, this hexagram says plainly, is deliverance you perform on yourself.

The Six Lines

A line speaks only when it is a changing line in your own casting.

Line 1
The hardship is over; barely a word is needed. Recover in silence. No blame.
Line 2
One kills the three foxes in the field and wins the yellow arrow: cunning influences removed by straightness. Steadfastness brings good fortune.
Line 3
Carrying a pack on the back yet riding in a carriage: a display that invites robbers. Persisting in it brings humiliation.
Line 4
Deliver yourself from the easy hangers-on — your own big toe. Then the friend you can truly trust will come.
Line 5
Deliverance must come from one's own inner resolve; then it brings good fortune and even the small-minded see you are in earnest, and fall away.
Line 6
The prince shoots the hawk from the high wall: the last, highest obstacle struck down at the perfect moment. Everything prospers.

Related Hexagrams

Reading about a hexagram tells you what it means.
Casting tells you what it means for you.
Cast Your Own Reading — Free
Three coins. Six castings. No account needed.