Archaeologists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have discovered an old inscription that paraphrases the first two verses of Psalm 86 at a remote location in Israel's Judean Desert.

According to university teaching fellow Oren Gutfeld, who was speaking to The Washington Times over the phone from a field location, the Byzantine Greek inscription, which dates to the early 6th century, was discovered on a monastery building stone at a dig site where there are no roads for vehicle access. To get the equipment to the site, his team had to employ donkeys.

The find is “the first time that I recall a phrase from the Psalms on an inscription [on a] huge stone building stone. It’s very, very rare — a unique something [that’s] bigger than the inscription itself,” Mr. Gutfeld mentioned.

Marked with a cross, the biblical inscription reads: “Jesus Christ, guard me, for I am poor and needy.” The first two verses of Psalm 86 say, “Hear me, Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy. Guard my life, for I am faithful to you,” according to the New International Version.

“This psalm holds a special place in the [Hebrew] Masoretic text as a designated prayer and is notably one of the most frequently recited psalms in Christian liturgy,” epigraphist Avner Ecker of Bar-Ilan University said in a statement. “Thus, the monk drew a graffito of a cross onto the wall, accompanied by a prayer with which he was very familiar.”