aft'-er, aft'-er-werd: The fundamental thought, in which all shades of meaning unite, is that of succession either in time or place. This succession may be immediate or remote. A very common adaptation of this conception the use of "after" to denote "according to," "after the manner of," or "in the order of," as in Ge 1:26; Eph 4:24; Lu 1:59; Ro 5:14; Heb 4:11 (the Revised Version, margin "unto"), and in many passages where the Greek uses the preposition kata, as Mt 23:3; Ro 8:4; 1Co 1:26, etc. "In proportion to": Ps 28:4; compare Ps 90:15.

 It sometimes correctly translates a peculiar Greek idiom of the preposition dia, with the genitive case, indicating time elapsed, as Mr 2:1, literally, "through some days," "after some days had passed"; compare Ac 24:17. While the Greek is expressed by a variety of words, the Hebrew uses ‘achar for both preposition and adverb.

  H. E. Jacobs