Please Help!!! Does anyone know exactly what sp_changesubstatus @status=inactive does?

We are migrating a subscriber DB to a new server, and it is re-publishing 2 days worth of commands.

I read in an old checklist here that someone ran these commands to clear all PUBLISHED and UNPUBLISHED commands for a subscription, possibly to prevent this from happening?:

EXEC sp_changesubstatus @publication =  'zz_OLTP_Transactions'

EXEC sp_changesubstatus @publication =  'zz_OLTP_Transactions'

,@subscriber =  'z89'

,@status     =  'active'

GO

I have heard that these are very dangerous to run. Does anyone know exactly what the "status=inactive" command does?

Thanks.

,@subscriber =  'z89'

,@status     =  'inactive'

GO