Our continued survival as a people has a lot to do with Moses's ability to talk God down. There we are, we've fashioned a Golden Calf, and God is ready to wipe us out and start over with Moses. But Moses reminds God that if God does this, God will appear to be foolish.
We are told that God is a "passionate god" and passionate people can tend to be impulsive while in the midst of their passions. Later on in our history, it doesn't work out so well for us:
And I sought from them a man to mend the fence and stand in the breach before Me for the sake of the land so as not to destroy it, and I found none. And I poured out My anger upon them, in the fire of My fury I made an end of them. Their way I paid back on their head,” said the Master, the LORD. (Ezekiel 22:30-31)
Why did Jerusalem and the Temple fall to Babylon? According to Ezekiel it's because no one stood up to God to talk God down.
When we are in the throws of passion, full of emotion, it might help to find our inner Moses to talk ourselves down, to remind ourselves of what we would choose to do if we were calm and collected and thinking about what happens next.
