As discussed under 2 Nephi 5:9, all other instances of “to take upon oneself to do something” have an expletive it immediately after the verb take—that is, all the others read “to take it upon oneself to do something”:
(See under Alma 39:9–10 for the possibility of a sixth example of this expression, in Alma 39:9.) Only here in Alma 62:44 is the it lacking from this expression. One therefore wonders if perhaps the text originally had an it here in Alma 62:44 as well but that it was accidentally lost during the early transmission of the text. 𝓞 is sufficiently extant here to determine that there was no it inline, nor is there any insert mark to indicate that the pronoun was supralinearly inserted. So if there is a loss of it here, it would have occurred during the dictation of the text. There is one clear example in the manuscripts where the pronoun it was omitted (but only momentarily):
There is also good reason to believe that an original it was lost in Jacob 5:24. In addition, an expletive it in the clause “and it must needs be” appears to have been omitted by scribe 2 of 𝓟 in 3 Nephi 28:37; but the error there is complicated by the apparent loss of must as the text was being dictated. (See under these two passages for discussion.)
In contrast to these five examples of “to take it upon oneself to do something”, there is never an expletive it when the complement for the verb is a regular noun phrase (“to take upon oneself something”). There are 40 instances of this second type, 15 of which refer to taking upon oneself the name of Christ. As we might expect, the it occurs only when the complement is an infinitive clause. The only question then is whether the it is required. One difference between the five other examples and the one here in Alma 62:44 is that the word again occurs (“Helaman did take upon him again to preach unto the people the word of God”), although it doesn’t seem like again could be the crucial reason why the it is lacking in Alma 62:44. Note that the it does occur in the otherwise similar example in Helaman 5:4: “and took it upon him to preach the word of God all the remainder of his days”.
Ultimately, what we need to recognize here is that there is nothing especially wrong with the missing it in Alma 62:44. Note that there has been no tendency in the history of the text to add the it to this passage. Moreover, for one of the five cases with the expletive it, the it was removed by Joseph Smith in his editing for the 1837 edition, thus showing that the expletive it is not crucial:
Given the invariance in the reading for Alma 62:44, the critical text will assume that the expletive it is intentionally lacking here.
Summary: Maintain in Alma 62:44 the invariant reading of all the textual sources, including 𝓞, which lacks the expletive it in “Helaman did take upon him again to preach unto the people the word of God”.