Coulter
Coulter occurs in 1Sa 13:20-21, as the translation of אֵת (eth), an agricultural instrument, rendered elsewhere "plough-share" (Isa 2:4; Mic 4:3; Joe 3:10), for which, however, a different word stands in the passage in 1 Samuel. The Sept. renders it by the general term σκεῦος, implement, in 1 Samuel, but plouwshare in the other passages. The Rabbins understand it to be a mattock. It was probably the facing- point or shoe of a plow, analogous to our coulter, as it was of iron, with an edge that required sharpening, and was easily transformed into a sword. Such an appendage to the plow, however, is not now in use in the East, SEE AGRICULTURE, but would be greatly needed in improved cultivation, considering the frail structure of the plow itself, the point being usually only of wood (see Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, 2:14, 17). SEE PLOUGH.
