Removing update option from Functions.php

I recently had to change the domain name on a WordPress site and to get the site to come back up, had to add the code below to the functions.php file in the child theme.

update_option(‘siteurl’,’http://example.com’);
update_option(‘home’,’http://example.com’);

So the WordPress tutorial said you have to remove it.
Is this really necessary or what happens if you keep it there?
I did remove it, it seemed like the site hung up and you had to keep doing a hard refresh. No issue if I leave the code in the functions.php file.

Thanks!