You need to quote the variable reference as well:
Ex 1:
me$ FOO=”BAR * BAR”
me$ echo “$FOO”
BAR * BAR
Ex 2:
FOO=”BAR * BAR”
echo “$FOO”
Ex 3:
queryString=”INSERT OVERWRITE LOCAL ‘/usr/local/testTemp/test’ DIRECTORY SELECT * FROM test24 limit 5;”
echo “$queryString”