How to I need to treat dried green lentils?
Your suspicion is correct about "far less mass than a chickpea" means you don't need to soak them as much. Chickpeas seem to need lots of soaking, but you don't have to soak lentils at all. I guess there are lots of kinds of lentils - the kind you have, the big ones with the skins on; the little peeled orange ones; the smaller dark colored ones with skins on, but I don't know of any kind of lentils that need to be soaked at all before cooking. This is the big advantage of lentils over other dried beans: you don't need to plan so far ahead.