[hibernate-issues] unexpected token: 913705176

Hi all, My column in the database is varchar(30). The query I am using looks like : Query query = session.createQuery("from Person pers inner join fetch pers.party p inner join fetch p.contacts c inner join fetch c.contactTelephones t where t.telNumber = "+telNum); The variable telNum is String. of course all the tables are mapped correctly (for sure). When telNum does not have a 0 as leading character then everything is OK but as soon as I put a leading 0 I got this exception ... why? org.hibernate.hql.ast.QuerySyntaxException: unexpected token: 913705176 near line 1, column 171 [from com.restartsystems.svarog.entity.Person pers inner join fetch pers.party p inner join fetch p.contacts c inner join fetch c.contactTelephones t where t.telNumber = 0913705176]