Here the original manuscript is extant for only the last letter of the modal verb; that letter is clearly a t rather than a y, which means that 𝓞 read might rather than may. 𝓟 also reads might, as does the 1830 edition. In his editing for the 1837 edition, Joseph Smith replaced the might with may, probably because he wanted to avoid the subjective or conditional aspect that might carries in modern English. For a list of six cases where Joseph made this emendation, see under Jacob 5:13; also see the discussion under 1 Nephi 3:19. There are, it turns out, parallel passages in which the modal might has not been edited to may, although it could have, as in the following example:
Summary: Restore in Alma 34:17 the original modal might (the reading of all the earliest textual sources).