This passage involves a shift in number, from singular to plural. It starts out in the singular (“every man which was a judge of the law”), then shifts to the plural (“or which was appointed to be judges”). Such shifts in number can be found elsewhere in the text and will be accepted in the critical text; for some discussion of other cases involving a shift from singular to plural for the phrase “every man”, see under 2 Nephi 29:11. In his editing here in Alma 11:1 for the 1837 edition, Joseph Smith initially changed the plural judges to the singular a judge (he supralinearly inserted the a and crossed out the plural s). But then Joseph realized that the following text was in the plural (“according to the time which they labored to judge those which were brought before them to be judged”). Consequently, he reversed himself and crossed out the inserted a; although he did not restore the plural s in 𝓟, the 1837 edition ended up with the intended plural, judges. Having maintained the plural judges, Joseph made some corrections in the preceding relative clause so that it would read in the plural: he added those and changed which was to who were (thus “or those who were appointed to be judges”). The standard LDS and RLDS texts have followed these grammatical emendations, but the critical text will restore the original “or which was appointed to be judges”. The disagreement between the was and judges is typical of the original text (for discussion, see under 1 Nephi 4:4 as well as under subject-verb agreement in volume 3).
Here in Alma 11:1, one wonders if wages shouldn’t be preceded by a possessive pronoun such as their or even his (as if the original text read “every man which was a judge of the law … should receive his wages according to the time which … ”). Elsewhere the Book of Mormon text clearly prefers his or their before wages:
The two nearby occurrences in Alma 11:3 and Alma 11:20 strongly suggest that his or their might have dropped out in the copying process in Alma 11:1, especially since all these verses in Alma 11 refer to the determination of wages. Although this particular portion of Alma 11:1 is not extant in the original manuscript, there is some evidence that his was originally there. First of all, in the missing part of the line there is enough room for his (or their). Secondly, a subsequent scribal error in the next line of 𝓞 suggests that his was indeed in the previous line. The facsimile transcript for this part of the original manuscript reads as follows:
( )f Mos( )ah that every man which ( ) LAW O I WAS A JUDGE OF THE LAW OR WHICH
( s) appointed to be Judges should ( ) WA RECEIVE HIS WAGES ACCORDING TO THE
they
( )me which^ laboured to ju(d ) TI GE THOSE WHICH WERE BROUGHT BEFORE
Oliver Cowdery initially wrote he laboured in 𝓞 because, I would argue, he had just heard (and written) his wages, with its singular pronominal his, which ultimately refers back to every man. The presumption then is that while copying from 𝓞 into 𝓟, Oliver accidentally dropped out the his. Interestingly, the 1830 compositor made the same mistake when he dropped out the their in front of wages while setting the type for Alma 11:20 (the 1837 edition restored the their, probably by reference to 𝓟).
If the original text read his wages in Alma 11:1, we would have a case of multiple shifting in number for this verse, from singular to plural and then back to the singular before returning to the plural:
Elsewhere, the original text has similar examples of multiple switching in number within the same passage, as in this nearby passage which in the original text also switches the number three times:
In that case, Joseph Smith edited two of the plural pronouns (their and they, but not these) to singulars. For discussion, see under that passage.
In addition to the case of Alma 11:1, there is one other occurrence in the current text of wages without any pronominal adjective:
This too may be an error, particularly when we consider another passage in the book of Alma which is semantically related:
The similarity in phraseology is particularly striking: “receiveth wages of him” (Alma 3:27) versus “receive his wages of him” (Alma 5:42). However, one example is probably not enough evidence for emending Alma 3:27. On the other hand, in Alma 11:1 the spacing in 𝓞 and the initial he in 𝓞 (rather than they) in the following clause argue that, despite its difficulty, the original text there read his wages. The standard edited text would, of course, read better if the proposed his was replaced with their (that is, “or those who were appointed to be judges should receive their wages according to the time which … ”).
Summary: Emend Alma 11:1 to read “every man which was a judge of the law … should receive his wages according to the time which … ”; this emendation is based on indirect evidence from the original manuscript; maintain in this passage the shifting in number from the singular a judge to the plural judges; also restore the original nonstandard uses of which and was to this passage.