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 inGe 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, asMt 23:3;Ro 8:4;1Co 1:26, etc. "In proportion to":Ps 28:4; comparePs 90:15.
It sometimes correctly translates a peculiar Greek idiom of the preposition dia, with the genitive case, indicating time elapsed, asMr 2:1, literally, "through some days," "after some days had passed"; compareAc 24:17. While the Greek is expressed by a variety of words, the Hebrew uses 'achar for both preposition and adverb.
H. E. Jacobs