PreparedStatement can't handle "IN" in "WHERE" clause

[salaryman]

I have a simple SQL statement:

SELECT DISTINCT id FROM TheTable WHERE id in ('1', '2', '3', '4');

If I run this in my SQL query window it correctly returns the set [1,
2, 3, 4].

If I execute the SQL directly using Statement.executeQuery, I get the
correct results. However, if I try and substitute the IN clause using
a PreparedStatement:

PreparedStatement statement = connection.prepareStatement("SELECT
DISTINCT id from TheTable WHERE id IN (?)");
statement.setString(1, "'1', '2', '3', '4'");

The result set is empty. I also tried:

statement.setString(1, "1, 2, 3, 4");

And this returns the set [1].

I am using MySQL and if I step into the code for
PreparedStatement.setString(), I can see that single quotes are added
to the front and end of the string, which explains why I am seeing the
behaviour. But it doesn't seem right!

Please can someone tell me whether or not this is expected behaviour,
or is MySQL doing something strange. As far as I can tell, there is no
solution for this problem, other than using a different query.

Cheers.