Floris Koot says I heard an interesting story about this. How the meaning of words change over time. Where once a word (I think in the Arab Koran) meant to 'take a distance' like making a stop sign with your hand, apparently the same word began to mean push away, which now means to beat, or hit. Thus the suggestion to take a distance from a wife (when you're irritated) is now allowance to strike. I see in my own life time this word changing happening a lot. A new Disney is already a Classic. Gay is not so much happy anymore. Sick is among American kids what once was cool and cool once was cold rather than hip. Perhaps to truly understand the holy books, we might also need to research the original meaning of words, rather than modern blindly accept modern interpretations.