Glob character within variable expands in bash but not zsh

I'm seeing an issue with zsh where a glob character within a variable is not expanding as I would expect. The following example does a better job of explaining it. $ echo $0 -bash $ echo $HOME/Downloads/zsh-test/* /Users/bruce/Downloads/zsh-test/file1 /Users/bruce/Downloads/zsh-test/file2 /Users/bruce/Downloads/zsh-test/file3 /Users/bruce/Downloads/zsh-test/file4 $ file=*; echo $HOME/Downloads/zsh-test/$file /Users/bruce/Downloads/zsh-test/file1 /Users/bruce/Downloads/zsh-test/file2 /Users/bruce/Downloads/zsh-test/file3 /Users/bruce/Downloads/zsh-test/file4 Macbook% echo $0 zsh Macbook% echo $HOME/Downloads/zsh-test/* /Users/bruce/Downloads/zsh-test/file1 /Users/bruce/Downloads/zsh-test/file2 /Users/bruce/Downloads/zsh-test/file3 /Users/bruce/Downloads/zsh-test/file4 Macbook% file=*; echo $HOME/Downloads/zsh-test/$file /Users/bruce/Downloads/zsh-test/* I would have expected the last command to expand like it does in bash. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?