Yes, and no. First, to the no. The Bible explicitly says exactly this,
“Say to them, As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel?” (Ezekiel 33:11).
Shouldn’t that settle the matter? While this text is of course true, this text is likewise true, “Whatever the Lord pleases, He does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps” (Psalm 135:6).
Which is why the answer is also yes. It is not either/or but both/and. It is not a contradiction, but a paradox. The truth is that God does take pleasure in the death of the wicked in one sense, and doesn’t in another sense. The pleasure He takes is grounded in the execution of His justice, the manifestation of His holiness. Does He take pleasure in that? He certainly does. He even tells us that He raised up Pharaoh for that very purchase, that He might manifest His glory in taking him down.
The pleasure He takes, however, isn’t in the death. What God is denying in Ezekiel is that He is a sadist, that He takes a perverse kind of pleasure in seeing people suffer. In context God is, speaking through Ezekiel, telling His covenant people who have already received judgment from God to not embrace discouragement, but to turn and repent. The people of God are beaten down, ashamed, and likely feeling hopeless. They have earned God’s disfavor and His judgment. The message then is a call to return to the loving arms of their Father, whose pleasure and delight is to forgive the repentant.
If we take an absolutist position that God in no way, shape or form finds pleasure in the death of the wicked we run into two significant roadblocks. First, the Bible makes it clear, not just in Psalm 135 but from beginning to end, that God is sovereign, that He does as He pleases, that no one and no thing can thwart His determined will. Second, the Bible makes it clear, from beginning to end, that God imposes judgment on all the wicked who are outside of Jesus. That is, to take an absolutist position on this text is to embrace full universalism, which flies in the face of the Bible.
Consider for a moment if you were a judge sentencing a murderer. You would be a perverse person indeed if you rubbed your hands together like a mad scientist, cackling over the crackling of the electric chair. You would be solemn, grave. It would be a dark day for you. But, at the same time, you would rejoice in the opportunity to do your job, to bring justice to pass, to love and respect the victim. How much more so for our heavenly Father who is altogether just, altogether holy, altogether merciful?
God takes pleasure in all that He does. He delights to forgive the repentant, and to execute justice on the unrepentant.