<正> By considering a new discrete isospectral eigenvalue problem,a hierarchy of lattice soliton equations ofrational type are derived.It is shown that each equation in the resulting hierarchy is integrable in Liouville sense andpossessing bi-Hamiltonian structure.Two types of semi-direct sums of Lie algebras are proposed,by using of which apracticable way to construct discrete integrable couplings is introduced.As applications,two kinds of discrete integrablecouplings of the resulting system are worked out.