[NEWBIE] exec path not expanding

[Robert Pollard]

Hello everyone,

I am curious as to why my exec path is not expanding the PATH variable. 
 Does it expand it when it uses it or should it be expanded in the 
exec-path variable?

I cannot get a directory listing and as per a previous post I get an 
error that it can't find the ls program.  Could this be the cause?

exec-path's value is
("/$SYBASE/$SYBASE_OCS/bin" "$SYBASE/$SYBASE_ASE/bin" "$PATH" 
"/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/bin" 
"/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/libexec")

Thanks,

Robert Pollard