We study spectral and thermodynamic properties of the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model, a variant of the k-body embedded random ensembles studied for several decades in the context of nuclear physics and quantum chaos. We show analytically that the fourth- and sixth-order energy cumulants vanish in the limit of a large number of particles N→∞, which is consistent with a Gaussian spectral density. However, for finite N, the tail of the average spectral density is well approximated by a semicircle law. The specific heat coefficient, determined numerically from the low-temperature behavior of the partition function, is consistent with the value obtained by previous analytical calculations. For energy scales of the order of the mean level spacing we show that level statistics are well described by random matrix theory. Due to the underlying Clifford algebra of the model, the universality class of the spectral correlations depends on N. For larger energy separations we identify an energy scale that grows with N, reminiscent of the Thouless energy in mesoscopic physics, where deviations from random matrix theory are observed. Our results are a further confirmation that the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model is quantum chaotic for all time scales. According to recent claims in the literature, this is an expected feature in field theories with a gravity dual.