To strike or smite, when used in the Bible, means to attack, harm or destroy, and is usually in reference to an attack on someone's knowledge and intellect. This is actually true both when evil people strike good people, trying to destroy their understanding of spiritual things, and when the Lord is pictured as striking people (with plagues in Egypt, for example), which most often represents the dulling of the intellect and destruction of knowledge in evil people to prevent them from doing spiritual harm to others.

(Referenties: Apocalypse Revealed 498; Arcana Coelestia 1487, 6758, 6765, 7330, 7871, 9007, 9034, 9081, 9126, 10510)