In the original manuscript, Oliver Cowdery initially wrote “clear my way before”, then later (with heavier ink flow) inserted me supralinearly. Since the expression “clear one’s way before” is possible in English, one wonders here if the me was consciously added later on by Oliver. Another possibility is that the correction was made when Oliver read back the text to Joseph Smith and it was discovered then that the me was missing. The ink flow for the originally written line of text in 𝓞 is quite weak; thus it is not surprising that Oliver might have redipped his quill before supralinearly inserting the me.
There are no other examples in the Book of Mormon of the expression “to clear one’s way before (one)”. In expressions involving “preparing the way before”, the Book of Mormon text always has an object pronoun following the before:
There is one further factor to consider: in 2 Nephi 4:33 the corrected text repeats the reference to the first person (“clear my way before me”). Such a redundancy is not found in any of the three instances of “prepare the way before X” (where X is a personal pronoun), but we do get this kind of redundancy in the King James version of the synoptic Gospels when they cite Malachi 3:1:
Based on this internal evidence, the unique expression “clear my way before me” in 2 Nephi 4:33 appears perfectly acceptable. The most reasonable assumption here is that the correction in 𝓞 represents Oliver Cowdery’s attempt to get Joseph Smith’s dictation down accurately rather than as an attempt to edit the text.
Summary: Maintain in 2 Nephi 4:33 the corrected text in 𝓞 (“but that thou wouldst clear my way before me”); the use of the pronoun after before is consistent with other usage in the text.