John 7:22

Moses hath given you circumcision (not that it is of Moses, but of the fathers); and on the sabbath ye circumcise a man.

This and John 7:23 establish the fact that circumcision is an older ordinance than the sabbath (Nehemiah 9:13,14), the sabbath having been given through Moses, and circumcision having come before Moses. These verses are the end of any notion that the sabbath goes back any further than Moses. Jesus was here pointing out that if a circumcision, commanded to be performed on the eighth day, fell on a sabbath, the Pharisees allowed it to be done (Leviticus 12:3), demonstrating the great truth that works of necessity and mercy were never intended to be forbidden by God's law regarding the sabbath.