Leviticus 12:3
1 The Lord spoke to Moses: 2 “Tell the Israelites, ‘When a woman produces offspring and bears a male child, she will be unclean seven days, as she is unclean during the days of her menstruation. 3 On the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin must be circumcised. 4 Then she will remain thirty-three days in blood purity. She must not touch anything holy, and she must not enter the sanctuary until the days of her purification are fulfilled. 5 If she bears a female child, she will be impure fourteen days as during her menstrual flow, and she will remain sixty-six days in blood purity. 6 “‘When the days of her purification are completed for a son or for a daughter, she must bring a one-year-old lamb for a burnt offering and a young pigeon or turtledove for a sin offering to the entrance of the Meeting Tent, to the priest.
John 7:22
19 Hasn’t Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law! Why do you want to kill me?” 20 The crowd answered, “You’re possessed by a demon! Who is trying to kill you?” 21 Jesus replied, “I performed one miracle and you are all amazed. 22 However, because Moses gave you the practice of circumcision (not that it came from Moses, but from the forefathers), you circumcise a male child on the Sabbath. 23 But if a male child is circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses is not broken, why are you angry with me because I made a man completely well on the Sabbath? 24 Do not judge according to external appearance, but judge with proper judgment.” 25 Then some of the residents of Jerusalem began to say, “Isn’t this the man they are trying to kill?
Notes and References
"... on closer examination, we also find a number of references to the law in John that suggest a positive function for the law’s prescriptive role in mandating just and merciful practices in the community. In John 7:22-24, Jesus makes a halakhic argument, pointing out that it is accepted practice to perform circumcisions on the sabbath “in order that the law of Moses may not be broken.” Thus he observes that there are cases in which the law’s regulations may come into conflict and that one commandment may override another. In light of this principle, then, he asks pointedly, “Are you angry at me because I made the whole man well on the sabbath?” This implies that the law’s fundamental aim of promoting human wholeness and flourishing can in some instances override its ritual prohibitions.39 This is certainly not a negation of the law; rather, it is an argument profoundly respectful of the law’s own inner logic, an argument that operates within well-established Jewish hermeneutical precedent ..."
Hays, Richard B. Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels (p. 352) Baylor University Press, 2017