The limit clause is no longer recognized by the parser in Hibernate 3 rc1. It did work in Hibernate 3 beta 2 and Hibernate 2. Query.setMaxResults provides a workaround.

Error 2005-02-28 15:02:27.789 unexpected token: limit near line 1, column 49 [select t.id from hdc.Tracker t where t.id < 100 limit 10]
org.hibernate.hql.ast.QuerySyntaxError: unexpected token: limit near line 1, column 49 [select t.id from hdc.Tracker t where t.id < 100 limit 10]
at org.hibernate.hql.ast.ErrorCounter.throwQueryException(ErrorCounter.java:74)
at org.hibernate.hql.ast.QueryTranslatorImpl.parse(QueryTranslatorImpl.java:214)
at org.hibernate.hql.ast.QueryTranslatorImpl.doCompile(QueryTranslatorImpl.java:127)
at org.hibernate.hql.ast.QueryTranslatorImpl.compile(QueryTranslatorImpl.java:83)
at org.hibernate.impl.SessionFactoryImpl.getQuery(SessionFactoryImpl.java:414)
at org.hibernate.impl.SessionFactoryImpl.getReturnTypes(SessionFactoryImpl.java:583)
at org.hibernate.impl.AbstractQueryImpl.getReturnTypes(AbstractQueryImpl.java:453)
at org.hibernate.console.HQLQueryPage.getPathNames(HQLQueryPage.java:72)
at org.hibernate.eclipse.console.views.QueryPageViewer.addColumnsToTable(QueryPageViewer.java:189)
at org.hibernate.eclipse.console.views.QueryPageViewer.createTable(QueryPageViewer.java:164)
at org.hibernate.eclipse.console.views.QueryPageViewer.createControl(QueryPageViewer.java:147)
at org.hibernate.eclipse.console.views.QueryPageViewer.<init>(QueryPageViewer.java:105)
at org.hibernate.eclipse.console.views.QueryPageTabView.rebuild(QueryPageTabView.java:78)
at org.hibernate.eclipse.console.views.QueryPageTabView$1.contentsChanged(QueryPageTabView.java:47)
at org.hibernate.eclipse.console.views.QueryPageTabView$1.intervalAdded(QueryPageTabView.java:52)
at javax.swing.AbstractListModel.fireIntervalAdded(AbstractListModel.java:130)
at org.hibernate.console.QueryPageModel.add(QueryPageModel.java:50)
at org.hibernate.console.KnownConfigurations$3.queryPageCreated(KnownConfigurations.java:167)
at org.hibernate.console.ConsoleConfiguration.fireQueryPageCreated(ConsoleConfiguration.java:265)
at org.hibernate.console.ConsoleConfiguration.executeHQLQuery(ConsoleConfiguration.java:246)
at org.hibernate.eclipse.console.actions.ExecuteHQLAction.execute(ExecuteHQLAction.java:99)
at org.hibernate.eclipse.console.actions.ExecuteHQLAction.run(ExecuteHQLAction.java:94)
at org.eclipse.jface.action.Action.runWithEvent(Action.java:1003)
at org.eclipse.jface.action.ActionContributionItem.handleWidgetSelection(ActionContributionItem.java:557)
at org.eclipse.jface.action.ActionContributionItem.access$2(ActionContributionItem.java:507)
at org.eclipse.jface.action.ActionContributionItem$7.handleEvent(ActionContributionItem.java:462)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.EventTable.sendEvent(EventTable.java:82)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.sendEvent(Widget.java:1009)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Display.runDeferredEvents(Display.java:2728)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Display.readAndDispatch(Display.java:2427)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.Workbench.runEventLoop(Workbench.java:1612)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.Workbench.runUI(Workbench.java:1578)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.Workbench.createAndRunWorkbench(Workbench.java:293)
at org.eclipse.ui.PlatformUI.createAndRunWorkbench(PlatformUI.java:144)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.ide.IDEApplication.run(IDEApplication.java:102)
at org.eclipse.core.internal.runtime.PlatformActivator$1.run(PlatformActivator.java:228)
at org.eclipse.core.runtime.adaptor.EclipseStarter.run(EclipseStarter.java:333)
at org.eclipse.core.runtime.adaptor.EclipseStarter.run(EclipseStarter.java:150)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:585)
at org.eclipse.core.launcher.Main.invokeFramework(Main.java:268)
at org.eclipse.core.launcher.Main.basicRun(Main.java:260)
at org.eclipse.core.launcher.Main.run(Main.java:887)
at org.eclipse.core.launcher.Main.main(Main.java:871)
Caused by: line 1:49: unexpected token: limit
at org.hibernate.hql.antlr.HqlBaseParser.queryRule(HqlBaseParser.java:716)
at org.hibernate.hql.antlr.HqlBaseParser.selectStatement(HqlBaseParser.java:227)
at org.hibernate.hql.antlr.HqlBaseParser.statement(HqlBaseParser.java:150)
at org.hibernate.hql.ast.QueryTranslatorImpl.parse(QueryTranslatorImpl.java:208)
... 44 more

Limit was *never* a supported clause in HQL. You are meant to use setMaxResults().