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No, the frost is not connected. And my position on the manna is that it is an unimportant plot device used by the different authors of the various stories to get to other points as presented in Who knows but it is really unimportant. (Message 6), Exodus manna vs Numbers manna (Message 11), Joshua manna (Message 13) and other messages throughout this thread.
Your reference is only a personal view, with total non compliance of the factors involved here:
"The manna mentioned in Exodus is more a plot device rather than anything else. Lith is very likely right on the factual source, but it really doesn't matter.
The point of the story is that the Sabbath should be kept."
In fact, the sabbath here is a secondary factor. First, there is the matter of feeding 3 M people in a desert; a similar thing occured elsewhere relating to well water. Its not about the Sabbath - which law was already given, thus not requiring to be reminded of: that would be superfluos and down-grading the effect of commandments.
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Exodus is a long folk tale that was designed to be told in small installments over many nights (gotta keep the storytellers fed) with some miracle or cliff hanger in each story.
I don't know of any folk tales which issue 613 commandments, historical details of the region not seen elsewhere, and aerial map depictions of the region's terrains for the first time. Name us one such folk tale?
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It's also one of the strange and unlikely tales found throughout Exodus that simply makes no sense on the face of it. In Exodus 16 the folk are only about two and a half months into their 40 year trek and also remember they took all their cattle, goats, sheep, herds with them when they left, and even in the story they get fed Quail in the evenings.
Strangely, quails migrate to this vicinity till today.
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The point of this part of the story begins in Verse 22:
22 On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much”two omers for each person”and the leaders of the community came and reported this to Moses. 23 He said to them, "This is what the LORD commanded: 'Tomorrow is to be a day of rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD. So bake what you want to bake and boil what you want to boil. Save whatever is left and keep it until morning.' "
24 So they saved it until morning, as Moses commanded, and it did not stink or get maggots in it. 25 "Eat it today," Moses said, "because today is a Sabbath to the LORD. You will not find any of it on the ground today. 26 Six days you are to gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will not be any."
Its a secondary issue; the sabaath law remains active without the manna advent.
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The manna is just a plot device to get to the place where the Sabbath rules could be reinforced.
The sabbath law is independent of this manna incidence. The fact is, your charge of different authors and folk tales is deficient of any substance. You should thus only posit it as a non-proven personal rejection based only on some form of disdain.
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